Unranked Lady Techsters Upset No. 4 Seed W. Tennis at NCAA Regional Tournament

It was supposed to be a weekend of upsets, and it most certainly was. Unfortunately for the Harvard women's tennis team, the wrong team went home early.

In a startling turn of events, the Crimson was ousted in the first round in the East Regional Tournament Friday by unseeded Virginia Tech, 5-2.

"I don't think that I have processed the weekend entirely," said senior Julia Kim. "I remember distinctly leaving the court, and I had this bad taste in my mouth. It was a hard way to go out and a hard way to bring my tennis career to an end."

Strapped with its lowest seed in two years, No. 4, the Harvard players knew that the road to the finals and to a seemingly inevitable matchup against rival William & Mary would be difficult. They just didn't realize the magnitude.

Losing four of the six singles matches, Harvard's season came to an unexpected and abrupt end when the Tech duo of Vanessa Pardo and Majka Serafinia disposed of Harvard's Julia Kim and Sanaz Ghazal, 8-2.

On that court, there was stunned silence, yet everywhere else at the Hokie's Burrows-Burleson Tennis Center there was a sense of normalcy. The top dog Tribe ripped apart Richmond while the Nos. 2 and 3 seeds--Kentucky and Virginia Commonwealth--cruised into the semifinals. Harvard was the only team missing.

"We were definitely looking forward to playing [William and Mary] in the second round and to have another shot at them," said captain Rosemary She. "We were very disappointed, but in tennis anything can happen."

Battling the adversity of taking exams on the road, the Crimson could never find its rhythm. Junior Ivy Wang and She, playing in the first two single spots, dropped both matches without even winning a set.

Wang, ranked No. 38 in the country, never got a chance to avenge an early season loss to William & Mary's Lauren Nikolaus, as she fell to Tech's Antonella Pozzi, 6-4, 6-4. Rosemary She followed suit with a 6-4, 6-3 defeat at the hands of Serafinia.

Co-captain Gabriela Hricko and sophomore Vedica Jain supplied the Crimson with its only victories of the tournament. Hricko's 6-4, 6-1 straight set win against Pardo and Jain's wild 6-7 (7-4), 6-0, 6-0 victory over Sabrina Pardo were followed by two more Harvard losses. Only one doubles match was needed to close the book on the Crimson's 1998 campaign.

"I don't think that they surprised us very much. They did change their lineup a little bit, and the matchups favored them slightly," Kim said. "Virginia Tech played a terrific match and came out ready. It was more how we were ready to handle things. It was a product of us and the situation more than them.

"We didn't stick around; we flew out that night," Kim continued. "We didn't have to deal with the thought of seeing [Virginia Tech] play William and Mary. We were looking forward to playing them, but it wasn't the way the cards fell."

Virginia Tech advanced and faced off against the Tribe in the semifinals. It was no surprise when the top seed knocked the Lady Techsters out of the race before closing out the tournament with a 5-1 win over Virginia Commonwealth to earn its second straight Regional title.

The only shock was that the defeated faces on the other side of the net were not from Cambridge. VIRGINIA TECH, 5-2 at Burrows-Burleson Tennis Center, Blacksburg, Va.

Singles

1. Pozzi (Virginia Tech) def. Wang (Harvard), 6-4, 6-4; 2. Serafinia (VT) def. She (H), 6-4, 6-3; 3. Hricko (H) def. Pardo (VT), 6-4, 6-1; 4. Jain (H) def. Pardo (VT), 6-7 (7-4), 6-0, 6-0; 5. Mrozek (VT) def. Ghazal (H), 6-4, 6-2; 6. Chen (VT) def. Kim (H), 7-6 (7-3), 6-3.

Virginia Tech won the doubles point.