Harvard Finishes Victorious

In what was likely the last match of its season, the No. 43 Harvard men’s tennis team traveled to Hanover, N.H. and defeated Dartmouth by a 6-1 count.

The Crimson (13-11) finished the regular season with a 5-2 mark in Ivy League competition, behind both Brown—which sits at 6-0 entering its final contest tomorrow—and Columbia, which finished its Ancient Eight schedule at 6-1.

It remains improbable that Harvard will earn an at-large bid into the NCAA tournament.

But though freshman Ashwin Kumar admitted that “it was most likely our last match of the season,” he was quick to point out that “we came in with a lot of energy [anyway].”

Sophomore Scott Denenberg—normally half of Harvard’s second doubles combination—was unavailable to travel due to academic conflicts, and so his usual partner in the second slot, sophomore Gideon Valkin, was paired with freshman Dan Nguyen.

Coach Dave Fish ’72 featured the new duo in the third doubles match and was rewarded with an 8-3 win. That victory, combined with an 8-5 win by co-captain Jonathan Chu and Kumar, was enough for the Crimson to clinch the doubles point.

“So that gave us a comfortable, 1-0 lead,” Fish said, “and the singles [competition] looked like it was going pretty well.”

In fact, four of the six Harvard players won their first sets—but then, Fish said, “it started to get a little dicier.”

Kumar and junior Brandon Chiu—two of the four off to fast starts—dropped their second sets and gave up third-set breaks. And co-captain Jason Beren, already trailing by a 6-3 margin, would also fall behind in his second set.

And so, Fish explained, “We’re up 3-0 after [Chu] wins and [Nguyen] wins, but we’re losing in all four of the other matches.”

Harvard would rally for victories in five of the six matches—Chiu suffered the only loss by a 6-2, 2-6, 4-6 count—and Chu and Beren, the squad’s two seniors, completed their collegiate dual-match careers on winning notes.

Chu took his match by a neat 6-4, 6-3 margin, and Beren, despite dropping his first set, went on to win in a match tiebreak.

“It was a nice time for the seniors to win,” said Fish, who also admitted that the duo was likely done with dual-match competition.

And while Harvard will bid goodbye to its co-captains, this Ivy season has seen the emergence of two freshman forces in Kumar and Nguyen, a pair that has played the entire league season in the second and third singles spots, respectively.

Both rookies earned 5-2 singles records during their first Ivy campaigns, and over the squad’s spring break trip to California—when Chu, the Crimson’s top singles player, was sidelined with a torn abdominal muscle—each rookie got the chance to compete in Chu’s stead.

“We had the opportunity to play [regularly] at two and three, which, for us, was good,” Kumar said. “For the next few years, it’s great.”

As for the end result of this season, though, the first in which Harvard has failed to capture the Ivy title since Chu and Beren’s freshman year?

“It’s obviously disappointing,” Kumar said. “It’s a little tough. But the positive, at least for the younger guys, [is that] we gained a lot of exposure.”

And it is exposure the duo’s coach will depend on down the road.

“They’re picking up experience all the time,” Fish said, “and if they’re doing well, then we can do well.”

­—Staff writer Rebecca A. Seesel can be reached at seesel@fas.harvard.edu.