Loss to Purdue Ends Season

For Eva Wang and Melissa Anderson, the seniors on the Harvard women’s tennis team, three of their four years with the Crimson had seen home court advantage in the early rounds of the NCAA tournament.

In 2006, Harvard (18-7) faced its first NCAA regionals away from the Beren Tennis Courts, and this past weekend the Crimson were overwhelmed by a solid performance from Purdue, losing 4-2 on Monday to end the team portion of the season.

“I’ll give credit, [Boilmakers] played really well,” junior co-captain Elsa O’Riain said.

“We didn’t lose really—they won,” she added

Next weekend, Eva Wang will begin her run at the NCAA individual singles crown, while the tandem of co-captains Melissa Anderson and O’Riain will take their shot at the doubles title.

Against Purdue, it was a tight doubles match from the captains that might have swung the result in favor of the Crimson.

In the closest contest of the day, the Boilermakers tandem of Brooke Beier and Mallory Voekler not only took Anderson and O’Riain to a decisive tiebreaker, but won that in dramatic fashion by a 9-7 tally.

With the length of the matches, Wang and sophomore Stephanie Schnitter had won their doubles contest 8-5, while juniors Cindy Chu and Preethi Mukundan had dropped theirs 8-4.

The loss at the number one doubles spot by the captains gave Purdue the doubles point and put Harvard in an early hole.

“If we had gotten that match, maybe we’d have had a shot,” O’Riain said.

Nevertheless, the match had not been decided by that point with some strong singles players for Harvard.

“We have come back from situations like that before,” freshman Laura Peterzan said. “I don’t think the doubles point decides everything”

Wang dropped the first singles 7-5, 6-4 and Peterzan—recently named Ivy League Rookie of the Year—dropped the third spot to Voekler to put the Crimson in an early 0-2 hole.

Victories from Anderson at the fourth spot—a 6-2, 6-2 winner—and Schnitter at the No. 6 spot gave the Crimson life. Schnitter took her match 6-1, 6-2.

But Purdue sealed the deal with a 6-2, 6-4 match from Anna Dzeva over Mukundan. O’Riain’s singles match did not matter, but she did pull out the victory at the second spot.

The Boilmakers went on to lose to Northwestern 4-1 in the second round—an opponent that the Crimson felt they could defeat after a 4-3 loss earlier in the season.

Unfortunately some key points going the wrong way prevented Harvard from ever getting the chance to prove itself.

A lack of home court advantage—which the Crimson had been given by the selection committee the last three years—also plagued the Harvard squad.

“We were kind of disappointed going into [the draw],” O’Riain said.

But O’Riain, Anderson and Wang still have a shot to make their mark during the 2006 season with the individual and doubles championships set for May 23-29.

—Staff writer Gabriel M. Velez can be reached at gmvelez@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Alex McPhillips contributed to this story.