M. Tennis Heads to ECAC's

Finally, the men's tennis season at Harvard has begun.

While it's true members of the team have played at individual tournaments in Providence and Tulsa the last two weekends, those excursions were merely a prelude to this week's fall indoor Eastern College Athletic Conference Invitational Championship in Princeton, N.J.

This is the first true team competition Harvard will compete in.

In 1998, the Crimson left New Jersey with the title and an automatic "winner's berth" to the National Indoor Tennis Tournament. While Harvard is still seeded No. 1 due to last year's success, its prospects are much different this time around.

James Blake, the nation's No. 1 player last year, has gone pro. Also, the team graduated its co-captains, Mike Passarella and Kunj Majmudar.

This year's team consists mostly of younger players who have been waiting in the wings for a chance.

"Last year, we were the favorite, with our sights set high on national performance," said Harvard Coach David Fish. "We have a different team this year, a tight group of guys, and our expectations are fairly modest."

Fish made a point of mentioning the leadership of this year's co-captains, John Doran and Joe Green. Green has had to lead the team the past two weeks, however, as Doran was recovering from patella tendonitis. Fish expects him to play, but wouldn't mention in what capacity.

In those last two weeks, the team has been tuning up by playing on the road in two tournaments. Last week, it was in Tulsa, where it put up a solid performance in doubles but lost lots of points in the singles. That was the opposite situation from the previous week's match at Brown.

Harvard has been greatly helped by the play of the freshmen, who have filled out some low singles spots. Oliver Choo, who won the "B" field title in Providence, will travel with the team, as will Dave Lingman, who saw his first action last week. The early competition has served to acclimate them to the pressures of college tennis, calming the early season jitters.

"After Tulsa, [the ECAC's] will seem easy," Choo said. "We worked on our singles this week, because basically the last two weekends of competition have been to gear up for this."

Along with the two captains and the freshmen, juniors Anthony Barker, Andrew Styperek, and Mike Rich along with sophomore William Lee will make the trip.

Harvard will play Georgetown, the No. 16 seed, in the first round. The ECAC field has 16 teams in a single-elimination tournament, and while 1998 finals foe Virginia Tech won't be participating, Fish says the Crimson should watch out for fellow Ivy League teams Columbia and Princeton.

"They probably seeded us No. 1 because they didn't want to have a fight over the other top teams," Fish said.