Chu-Choo Chug to Victory

This train runs nonstop to the top.

Refusing to be derailed by individual misfortunes in the singles bracket, the Harvard tennis duo of junior Oliver Choo and freshman Jonathan Chu—Choo-Chu, for short—chugged through the men’s doubles bracket like a high-powered locomotive at the Harvard Winter Invitational last weekend.

Choo and Chu upset the No. 1 team in the northeast to claim the tournament’s doubles title at the Beren Tennis Center Monday.

Not to be outdone, Harvard freshman Alexis Martire won the women’s singles title on the same court. Martire also teamed with junior Sanja Bajin to claim the tourney’s doubles title in convincing fashion, completing a weekend of most discourteous hosting by the Crimson.

Harvard Women

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Even with freshman Courtney Bergman—Harvard’s top player and the No. 1 seed in this weekend’s tourney—a late scratch because of injury, the singles’ title match last weekend was still an all-Harvard, all-freshman affair.

Martire bested classmate Susanna Lingman 6-2, 7-5, to take the tourney crown.

Martire called the clash with Lingman her toughest match of the tourney, harder even then her semifinal win over BC’s Allison Ashley, which went to three sets.

“Susanna’s very tough,” Martire said. “She’s a great baseline player and she’s very athletic.”

Like the rest of her teammates, Martire was taking part in her first live competition since November. She admitted that she battled through a little rust en route to last weekend’s victory.

“I was a little skeptical of how I’d do because I had been focusing on academics,” Martire said. “I had about a week [after exam period] to buckle down and run, eat healthy and do the things you need to do.”

Shortly after downing Lingman, Martire joined with Bajin to cruise to a relatively painless win in the doubles bracket. The pair won 8-4 in the semifinals and 8-2 in the championship match.

In other action, Harvard senior Lara Naquashbandi reeled off four straight victories after dropping her opening match to win the consolation round in the second singles’ flight.

Bergman, the freshman phenom—who competed in last fall’s national tournament—was forced to withdraw from the tourney last Thursday. She had suffered a shoulder injury earlier last week.

“We tried to monitor it slowly and it just didn’t improve in time,” Bergman said.

She plans to return in time for the Crimson’s meet this weekend with Duke.

“I’m slowly making my way back,” she said.

Harvard Men

Chu and Choo’s doubles win Monday came on the heels of Chu’s upset loss in the men’s singles final.

In that match, Chu dropped a heartbreaking first set to Brown rival Nick Malone and never recovered, falling 7-6 (4), 6-2. Chu, who was seeded first in the field, had defeated Malone in a meeting last fall.

Chu exacted a measure of revenge in the doubles bracket, however, when he and Choo—who earlier earned a consolation round victory in singles—bested Malone and his Brown partner in the second round.

After beating Harvard teammates Cliff Nguyen and Brian Wan in the semifinals, Chu and Choo met Brown’s talented tandem of Nick Goldberg and Adil Shamasdin. Despite falling behind 6-7, Chu and Choo—who stunned the 34th-ranked doubles team in the country in October—strung together nine consecutive points en route to the surprise comeback 9-7 win.

In other men’s action last weekend, Nguyen prevailed in the first-round consolation event after dropping his opening match to Akshay Jagdale of Rutgers.

Also, freshman David Hiniker just missed out on winning the ‘B’-flight consolation event, falling 6-4, 6-4 in the final match.