Crimson Powers to Ivy Wins

With just over a week remaining in league play, the No. 15 Harvard women’s tennis team is three wins from its fourth consecutive Ivy title after defeating No. 41 Penn 5-2 on Friday and Princeton 7-0 on Saturday. The pair of road victories gives the Crimson an overall record of 15-6 and 4-0 among the Ancient Eight.

“On both occasions we really stepped up and came through big,” Head Coach Gordon Graham said. “It was a very impressive performance by everybody.”

HARVARD 7, PRINCETON 0

In its shortest match of the season, Harvard captured the doubles point and all six singles matches to sweep Princeton for the third year in a row.

“Everybody knew that Princeton wasn’t going to be quite as strong as Penn but they’re still a good team,” Graham said. “There was no let down and we never let the crowd get going.”

Ranked No. 2 in the nation for doubles, junior Elsa O’Riain and senior Melissa Anderson improved to a 30-6 overall record with an 8-3 win in the first court over the Tigers’ Jessica Siebel and Ivana King. Senior Eva Wang and sophomore Stephanie Schnitter defeated Christine Kansky and Rankin Williams by a score of 8-2 in the second position to clinch the doubles point for the Crimson.

O’Riain, ranked 115th nationally among singles players, led the way for Harvard with a 6-3, 6-0 victory over Siebel in the second position. Anderson, ranked 72nd and playing in the fourth spot, followed with a 6-1, 6-1 win of her own against Alison Hashmall.

Peterzan, at No. 3, clinched the match with a 6-4, 6-2 triumph over King. Schnitter, whose ribs were sore from a fall earlier last week, won the first-set tiebreaker 7-6 (5) against Kansky and went on to take the second set 6-1 in the fifth spot.

HARVARD 5, PENN 2

Rainy weather forced Harvard inside on Friday but it did not prevent the team from prevailing over its biggest Ivy rival. The Crimson swept the doubles and picked up four out of six singles wins to remain the only undefeated team in the league.

“Penn is definitely our main competitor so they are definitely a team not to be overlooked, and we went into the match thinking that,” Wang said.

Matches were even on all three doubles courts when they were brought indoors due to heavy rainfall. O’Riain and Anderson were the first to wrap up their match with an 8-4 win against the Quakers’ Julia Koulbitskaya and Yulia Rivelis.

Following them were Wang and Schnitter, who edged Alexis Plukas and Raluca Ciochina 9-7.

“The doubles points were critical because [Penn] had a huge crowd,” Graham said. “Getting that [overall] doubles point shut the crowd down and gave us some confidence, too.”

In singles, Wang at No. 1 and Peterzan at No. 3 won their matches with little difficulty as they defeated Rivelis 6-4, 6-2 and Plukas 6-2, 6-0, respectively. Schnitter at No. 5 won her first set against Ciochina in a 7-6 (5) tiebreaker but had an easier time in the second set, winning 6-2.

Both Anderson and O’Riain dropped the first sets of each of their matches but Anderson managed to pull through against Mitchell as she prevailed, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in the fourth spot. Koulbitskaya got Penn on the board with her 6-3, 6-2 win over O’Riain in the second position.

Missing from the Harvard lineup this weekend was junior Preethi Mukundan, who was sick and did not travel.

The Crimson will travel to New Haven to face Yale on April 21 and will play its final home match of the season against Brown on April 23.

“We’ve been taking it one match at a time all season and will keep doing it,” Graham said. “I think the players have done a great job at that and staying focused at the task at hand.”

However, the team still anticipates the upcoming NCAAs with the hopes of surpassing previous years’ performances in the tournament.

—Staff writer Barbara R. Barreno can be reached at barreno@fas.harvard.edu.