Crimson Fall in Historic Fashion to Cornell

After dropping its first two Ivy games of the season, the Harvard men’s tennis team returned home frustrated by its continuing trend of losing close games, while May’s NCAA Championships loomed.

The Crimson (4-11, 0-2 Ivy) was once again the victim of matches decided by a single point, and it was perhaps appropriate that Harvard’s second loss of the weekend, at the hands of Columbia, ended with the now-dreaded and familiar final score of 4-3.

“At our best, we’re capable of playing great tennis,” junior Ashwin Kumar said. “But in one match I would play well, and in another match another player would play well, so the problem is consistency. All three doubles and all six singles just haven’t come together at the same time.”

Harvard will look to find greater consistency when it faces more Ivy competition next week, this time at the Beren Tennis Center.

It will return to the courts to host Penn on Friday at 2 p.m. and Princeton on Saturday at noon.

COLUMBIA 4 HARVARD 3

After falling to the Lions in New York, the Crimson lost its second-straight Ivy League match on the weekend. Harvard got off to a shaky start when the pair of Kumar and co-captain Brandon Chiu lost 3-8 at the first position to the pair of Jimmy and Martin Moore of Columbia. Juniors Scott Denenberg and Gideon Valkin, playing second, picked up an 8-6 win to give the Crimson a chance of securing the doubles point.

The most frustrating match of the day, however, happened at the doubles third position, where Harvard essentially lost the game on its own. Jared Drucker and Dan Urban of the Lions edged out junior Shantanu Dhaka and sophomore Dan Nguyen, 9-8 (2), as the Crimson continued to struggle in close matches, picking up the crucial doubles point that would make the difference in the game.

“The other [doubles] team had more energy and picked it up towards the end,” Kumar said. “These things happen, but despite this, we still had our chances in the singles, but we couldn’t pull out some close matches. It’s been the same old story in these 4-3 losses.”

In the singles matches, Harvard and Columbia were evenly matched. Kumar defeated Jimmy Moore 7-6, 0-6, 6-1 at the first position, freshman Sasha Ermakov picked up a 5-7, 6-2, 7-6 win at No. 3, and Nguyen won 6-3, 6-4 at No. 4. Mark Clemente defeated Chris Clayton, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 at the second position, and Drucker defeated Dhaka, 6-3, 6-1, at No. 5. The Lions secured their win at the sixth position, where Denenberg lost 6-4, 5-7, 3-6 to Urban.

CORNELL 5 HARVARD 2

The Big Red men’s tennis team snapped a 45-year losing streak against Harvard by dominating the singles matches, en route to delivering a loss to a struggling Crimson team in its first Ivy game.

Harvard played well at the start, winning the doubles point. No. 43 Kumar and Ermakov defeated Nick Brunner and Josh Raff, 8-6, at the first position. Denenberg and Valkin outplayed Dan Brous and Josh Goldstein, 8-5, at the second position to clinch the doubles point. Dhaka and Nguyen fell to Kyle Doppelt and Brett McKeon at No. 3 in a close match, 6-8.

In the singles matches, however, Harvard could never get it going against Cornell. The only Crimson victory came from Nguyen at the sixth position. Kumar, Clayton and Ermakov all lost in three sets, and Chu and sophomore Brian Wan were defeated in two.

“It was a total shocker,” Kumar said. “Collectively, it was the worst singles performance we’ve had all season. With our depth, we usually find a way to win three out of six. But I give them credit. They played fearlessly [while] we waited for them to give the game to us, which obviously did not happen.”

Kumar said that before the match Harvard had “no idea” of the 45-year streak. When the team found out afterwards, he said, “it was so sad that it was funny.”

—Staff writer Tony D. Qian can be reached at tonyqian@fas.harvard.edu.