Men's Tennis Beats Field at Intersession Invite

The No. 75 Harvard men’s tennis team had little time to recover from finals as it began its spring season a few days after exam period ended at home in the Murr Center with the Harvard Intersession Invitational, while also sending two players to New York City for the Columbia Classic.

But if the Crimson felt any fatigue from exams or rust from the long layoff between seasons, it didn’t show. Harvard players took both the singles and doubles titles at the Invitational while battling hard against tough competition at Columbia.

“I was very pleased with the start because [playing] after exams is really hard for any Harvard team,” said Crimson coach Dave Fish ’72.

HARVARD INTERSESSION INVITATIONAL

Facing opponents from Boston College, Marist, and Princeton, Harvard excelled in singles and doubles throughout the three-day tournament, winning in the finals in both events on Monday.

Co-captain Gideon Valkin took the crown in singles, beating the Tigers’ Peter Capkovic, the top-seeded player in the tournament, 7-6, 2-6, 6-4.

“It was a very big win,” Valkin said. “I was the underdog, but I knew that I was good enough to beat the guy. I rose to the occasion and played well.”

The South African went 5-0 overall, losing only three sets. Fish likened Valkin’s performance to the play of Boston-area athletes from a different sport.

“He was a little like the New England Patriots today,” Fish said. “He kept playing within himself through the weekend.

“He was doing it with a consistency that allowed him to compete with clearly one of the best guys in the league and beat him.”

Crimson junior Dan Nguyen also had success in singles play. He won against Marist’s Christian Cooley, 6-0, 6-2, and B.C.’s Thomas Nolan, 6-3, 2-6, 6-4. Nguyen eventually lost to the No. 4 seed, B.C.’s Soma Kesthely, 6-4, 2-6, 6-3, but went 2-1 overall.

Harvard found itself in a win-win situation in the doubles final, as junior Ashwin Kumar and freshman Michael Hayes faced off against Nguyen and junior Kieran Burke.

Kumar and Hayes came out on top, 8-6, to win the title.

“That’s a good sign that we had both of the finalists,” Valkin said. “Nguyen and Burke had never played together before. [Kumar and Hayes] make a great team together.”

Fish had praise for Hayes, and also noted that the rookie is still improving.

“He’s trying to sharpen his weapons and become much clearer about his shot selection,” Fish said. “It’s like a piano player trying to play a piece so well that his fingers just walk on the keys. A tennis player tries to make his shots so well that he knows where they’re going.”

COLUMBIA CLASSIC

The Crimson sent co-captain Scott Denenberg and sophomore Chris Clayton to New York to play in the Columbia Classic, another three-day event that ended on Sunday. The tournament featured tough competition from some of the best players in the Northeast, and Fish felt that Denenberg and Clayton would benefit from the challenge.

“That was the level of play that they both needed,” Fish said.

Denenberg went 0-2 in singles play, losing to Louis Desmarteaux of St. John’s, 6-4, 5-7, 6-1 in the first round and Yale’s Michael Caldwell, 6-3, 3-6, 7-6.

Fish was not discouraged by the losses though, stressing Denenberg’s ability to stay competitive with talented players.

“Scott went three sets with a guy who got to the finals. Then he played the No. 3 guy at Yale and lost 7-6 in the third set,” Fish said. “It was a good tournament for him—probably a little hard on him not to get the brass ring at the end,” he said.

Clayton had a little more success at Columbia, going 1-1 in singles competition. He beat Phillip Stephens from Fairleigh Dickinson, 2-6, 7-5, 6-1, before losing a hard-fought three set battle to Columbia’s Mark Clemente, 7-5, 6-7, 7-5. Clemente went on to take the singles title.

“He lost to the guy who won the tournament,” Fish said. “It’s not bad to get denied early and see if it teaches you what to do later in the season.”

The Harvard duo then teamed up for doubles play, making it to the quarterfinals where they lost to Manhattan College’s Bogdan Borta and Mihai Nichifor by a score of 9-8.

After big wins in Cambridge and a good showing at Columbia, Denenberg attributed his team’s success to solid preparation.

“I think we prepared much more professionally this year than in past years,” he said. “You can see that from the results of this weekend’s tournaments.”

—Staff writer Loren Amor can be reached at lamor@fas.harvard.edu.