M. Tennis Shines in Win Over MTSU

The No. 14 Harvard men’s tennis team rewrote history in yesterday’s opening round of the Blue Gray Invitational, avenging last year’s loss to No. 57 Middle Tennessee State University with a 4-1 win.

The tournament, held in Montgomery, Ala., draws some of the elite teams in the country for its four-day run, and for the second straight year, the Crimson (7-2, 0-0 Ivy) opened the event against the Blue Raiders.

“[MTSU] seemed to have confidence because they had beaten us here last year [in the] first round,” captain Cliff Nguyen said. “At the same time, we really wanted revenge.”

Indeed, though second-seeded Harvard dropped the doubles point for the second time in a week, the team rallied with assertive singles play to take the victory from the Blue Raiders (5-6, 0-1 Sun Belt).

“Overall, it was a good outing for the first day, but something we’ll hope to build on,” Harvard coach David Fish said.

Fish pointed to the team’s lack of outdoor play and the varying match times as factors which have caused the Blue Gray to be a challenge for the Crimson in years past. Captain Cliff Nguyen added that unlike the squad’s recent trip to Bollettieri’s, for which the players left a day early and gained outdoor practice time, this excursion allowed for only a 30-minute practice and 30-minute warmup.

“It’s a little hard to know how to gauge our warmup,” Fish explained, “And I don’t think we gauged it well.”

This uncertainty was clearly apparent in the doubles competition. Though the Crimson enjoyed much early season doubles success, the squad endured a slight hiccup last weekend—losing its first team point since the beginning of the season—and, subsequently, Fish began tinkering with the lineup.

Playing in the third slot yesterday were junior Jason Beren and senior George Turner. The duo, which boasts a 10-5 record since the start of this academic year, has not garnered much playing time recently—other than a victory last Saturday—and fell 8-3.

Also losing was the top doubles team of captain David Lingman and junior Jonathan Chu. The pair—now ranked No. 26—had not lost since Valentine’s Day.

“We just came out a little bit flat on energy, and [Middle Tennessee State] came out pretty strong,” Nguyen said. “I don’t know exactly what happened with the doubles.”

With the point thus clinched by Middle Tennessee State’s two victories, the final match was suspended.

But just like last weekend, the players paid little notice to the lost doubles point and stormed the courts for singles.

In dominant fashion, Harvard took four singles matches in straight sets and clinched the team victory. Of the four wins, one set went to a tiebreak, and another was taken to 7-5—in the rest, though, Harvard gave up three games or less.

“In singles, the guys came out and did a pretty good job going after [their opponents],” Fish said. “It was 4-1. We were winning the other two matches [which were suspended].”

“We feel pretty good,” Nguyen added, “[and are] definitely look forward to our [next] match. I think we’ve got a lot of momentum, and [we’ll] just keep moving forward.”

The team will need that momentum as it takes on Boise State today. The No. 35 Broncos mounted a remarkable comeback from 0-3 to beat Old Dominion, 4-3, on Thursday, and the team is sure to pose a challenge.

“[Thursday was] not a bad outing, but now, it’ll get much tougher,” Fish said.