No. 26 Miami Outlasts Women's Tennis, 6-3

On Saturday afternoon at the Murr Center, the Harvard women's tennis team played host to No. 26 Miami.

And despite some gutsy, determined play, the Crimson (2-7, 1-1 Ivy) was unable to handle the Hurricanes in the singles portion of the meet, as Miami won five of six singles matches, clinching the victory before the doubles round began.

The Crimson fell to the Hurricanes by a final margin of 6-3.

But Miami's victory was not nearly as lopsided as the scoreboard would have you believe. Most of the matches were very highly contested.

"We really weren't that far away from them," said sophomore Roxanna Curto. "We played them very close, we just weren't able to pull out any of the matches."

Curto, playing in the No. 6 position, claimed the only victory for Harvard in the singles competition. She faced off against senior Sophie Cortina in high-tension, three-set contest,

Curto took the first set, 7-5. But plagued by some untimely unforced errors, she dropped the second to Cortina, 6-3. In the final set, however, Curto was able to pull her game together, using superior pace on her groundstrokes and serve to close out the match, 6-4.

"In the first two sets I was making a lot of mistakes and not doing my best, but in the third I felt like I was finally playing well," Curto said. "This was an important match for me, because I figured out a way to win despite making a lot of errors."

Unfortunately for Harvard, this was the only singles match that it would pull out.

At the No. 1 position, junior Vedica Jain hung tough with hard-hitting sophomore Lioudmila Skavronskaia. After dropping the first set 6-1, Jain managed to regroup, taking the second, 7-5, to even the match. But Skavronskaia's incredible power proved to be too much in the end, as Jain finally fell in the third set, 6-1.

Fleur Broughton, playing in the No.4 slot for Harvard, also took her opponent to the limit in singles competition. Facing sophomore Alanna Broderick, Broughton took the first set in a tiebreaker, 7-6. Broderick, however, quickly recovered, winning the final two sets, and the match, 6-2, 6-1.

In the No. 2 position, Crimson sophomore Sanaz Ghazal took on sophomore Katia Bogomolova. Although Ghazal battled throughout, Bogomolova was able to handle her, winning the match in straight sets, 6-3, 6-3.

Harvard freshman Andrea Magyera played a very close match with freshman Marcy Hora at the No. 3 slot, but also fell in straight sets, 6-4, 7-5.

At No.5, freshman Jenny Timoney was unable to get anything going for Harvard in her match against junior Evqa Jimenez, as she fell 6-0, 6-0.

With the match already in hand, Miami voluntarily defaulted in the No. 3 doubles match, but still played for the No. 1 and No. 2 positions.

Despite playing only for pride at this point, Harvard remained focused and poised, playing its best tennis of the afternoon in the doubles round.

The main story was the surprising upset by the team of Ghazal and Broughton over Skavronskaia and Broderick at the No. 1 position. The duo of Skavronskaia and Broderick are ranked No. 35 in the country, and figured to win without much trouble.

Ghazal and Broughton, however, fought the strong Miami team for every point, keeping the match even throughout. And when the Hurricanes forced a tiebreaker at 8-8, the Crimson duo did not panic. Instead, playing with confidence and great poise they withstood Miami's superior power to take the tiebreaker, 7-3 and the match, 9-8.

At No. 2, Jain and Magyera also gave the Hurricanes a run for their money. Facing the team of Bogomolova and Jimenez, Jain and Magyera jumped out to a 5-2 lead. Miami stormed back, however, winning six of the next seven games, to squeeze out an 8-6 victory.

Despite losing its seventh meet in nine tries, the Crimson remains confident.

Its poor record is more an indication of the high caliber of team that Harvard has been playing, than of the team's ability. Five of the No. 66 Crimson's losses have come to teams ranked in the Top 25.

With Ivy League matches still remaining and most of the tougher meets out of the way, Harvard is looking forward to increased success and more team victories.

"We've been playing some really good teams, with very high rankings," Curto said. "And although the overall team scores have not been great, we've played in some really close matches. So we are pretty confident as we move on to play our easier opponents, as well as our Ivy League matches."