M. Tennis Visits Penn, Princeton

The Harvard men's tennis team will head down to the mid-Atlantic states this weekend to take on Princeton and Penn in its first Ivy league matches outside of Cambridge.

The Crimson (15-4, 2-0 Ivy) will take on Princeton on Friday afternoon at the Lenz Tennis Center and Penn (11-4, 1-2) on Saturday in Philadelphia.

Harvard enters the weekend on a four-match winning streak, during which the team has gone 21-7 in individual matches. The streak follows a mid-season lull in which the Crimson lost two of three matches, the first to No. 25 Virginia and the second to No. 38 Boise State, a team that the Crimson defeated just one week before.

The two losses dropped Harvard from its season high ranking of No. 16 to No. 23, as of the April 6 rankings.

The streak includes Harvard's first two Ivy League wins last weekend at the Murr Center. The Crimson steamrolled Columbia last Friday, 6-1, then blanked Cornell the next afternoon, 7-0.

Strong singles play and new configurations at doubles have sparked the Crimson's recent success.

Sophomore James Blake, currently ranked No. 1 in the country, has been consistently stellar all season, but has played in only two of the last four matches. He sat out a match against New Mexico State because of a back injury and rode the bench against Cornell to allow less-seasoned teammates some match experience.

With Blake in and out of the line-up, Harvard has looked to other players for key wins and has found them from different people at different times.

Junior John Doran has been the most consistent on the team in the last month. The Ireland native has won his last 11 matches in dual-match play, and broke into the Top 100 with a No. 96 singles ranking in the last published polls.

Junior Joe Green and Sophomore Scott Clark have also provided a spark in the bottom half of the singles line-up.

Green has won three of his last four matches, playing at No.2 and No.4. His only loss came against Pepperdine, in a three-set match that went to tiebreakers in the last two sets.

Clark has been equally impressive during this run, with three wins over four matches. Clark has shown the ability to go the distance in long three-setters and pull it out in crunch time. His last three wins have all lasted into the final set.

In the wake of the losses to two lower-ranked teams, the Crimson also rearranged its No. 2 and No.3 doubles.

Green and Clark have won three straight matches at No. 2 and appear to be establishing a good rhythm on the court.

Co-captain Mike Passarella was first paired with sophomore Andrew Styperek in the Boise State loss at the end of March. Though the team lost the match, the duo won there, and won every match until Styperek was injured against Cornell.

Twisting his ankle after a big serve, Styperek struggled through the rest of the set but eventually retired after the Crimson had won the doubles point. He will not travel with the team this weekend, but is staying positive about the injury.

"I have been walking around yesterday and today," Styperek said. "I am going to rest this weekend, but I may be back for the matches against Brown and Yale next weekend."

With Styperek down, the team will probably look to pair Passarella with another equally successful partner.

The Crimson last faced the Tigers from central Jersey in the semi-finals of the ECAC championships at Princeton last October. Harvard prevailed, 5-2.

Princeton should be the Crimson's toughest league opponent in its search for another Ivy crown. Princeton is currently ranked No. 67 in the nation, though its line-up features no ranked players.

Although Penn jumped out to a quick start in its non-league season, the Quakers have slowed a bit in league play. The team lost to Princeton 6-1 and Yale 5-2 in the last couple of weeks.

This will be the first meeting of the Quakers and the Crimson this season.

The Crimson will face Princeton at 2 p.m. tomorrow and Penn at noon on Saturday.