Deep Lineup Delivers Two Ivy Victories

After dropping close matches to Ivy League foes Penn and Princeton last weekend, the Harvard men’s tennis team was trying to get back on track against rivals Yale and Brown this weekend. And with little more than bragging rights on the line, the Crimson delivered, picking up 5-2 victories over the Bulldogs and the Bears.

With the Quakers storming through league play and Columbia close behind, Harvard (9-9, 4-2 Ivy) came into the weekend knowing that the Ivy League title was essentially out of reach. But that didn’t seem to affect the Crimson’s level of play.

“To a certain extent, it is personal,” sophomore Chris Clayton said. “There is pride on the line, regardless of the records.”

With the end of his collegiate career in sight—and playing in his final match on Harvard’s courts—co-captain Gideon Valkin elevated his game even further, coasting to victories in all of his singles and doubles matches.

“Gideon has been hot,” Clayton said. “Period. It’s been phenonemenal—it takes a lot of pressure off the top singles players and gives the team confidence.”

Fellow co-captain Scott Denenberg, meanwhile, was out of the lineup due to injury, cheering from the stands with a boot on his right foot.

The Crimson will close out its season on the road on Wednesday when it travels to Hanover, N.H., to take on Dartmouth.

HARVARD 5, BROWN 2

Harvard clinched the match before Brown even got on the scoreboard, taking the doubles point and the first three singles matches in a 5-2 victory over the Bears (16-12, 1-5) yesterday afternoon at the Beren Tennis Center.

Freshman Michael Hayes secured the win at No. 6 singles, topping Brown’s Noah Gardner in straight sets, 6-4, 6-4. After being broken in the second set to fall behind, 4-3, Hayes won the next three games—including two of Gardner’s service games—to end the match.

That performance came after Hayes and Valkin demolished the Bears in pairs play, running away with an 8-2 win at No. 2 to clinch the doubles point. The length of the rallies on the No. 2 court meant that Harvard’s top pair, junior Ashwin Kumar and sophomore Sasha Ermakov, finished its 8-5 victory before Hayes and Valkin despite the smaller differential.

Juniors Kieran Burke and Dan Nguyen completed the doubles sweep, winning in a tiebreak at No. 3, 8-7(3).

“We lost the doubles point last year,” Clayton said. “So, this year, we wanted to come out and take the doubles point to give us a little bit of a head start and take some pressure off of the singles matches.”

Valkin won the first singles match of the day, streaking to a 6-2, 6-1 victory over Zach Pasanen. Ermakov finished next, dropping the second set but capturing the other two in emphatic fashion, closing out a 6-2, 3-6, 6-1 win with an overhead smash.

Nguyen, playing at No. 2 singles for the first time in several weeks, alternated between dominance and futility—combining line-clipping groundstrokes with a series of double faults and missed volleys—en route to a three-set victory that gave Harvard its fifth point of the day.

“I’ve got confidence in Dan at the two-spot,” Clayton said. “The guy he played today is aggressive, and Dan brought his A-game, especially in the first set.”

Clayton and Kumar dropped matches on the No. 1 and No. 3 courts.

HARVARD 5, YALE 2

The Crimson’s top players struggled, but Harvard pulled out a 5-2 victory over the Bulldogs (7-11, 1-4) Friday afternoon in New Haven, Conn.

Nguyen and Burke clinched the doubles point with a 9-7 win at No. 3. Valkin and Hayes tallied the other pairs win for the Crimson, routing Jeff Dawson and Josh Lederman, 8-3, at the No. 2 position.

Kumar and Ermakov struggled at No. 1, however, dropping their match, 8-5.

It was the bottom of the order that brought home the victory for Harvard in singles play, with the Crimson’s No. 3-6 players all winning their matchups.

Ermakov and Hayes delivered the first singles victories of the afternoon, winning in straight sets at No. 5 and 6, respectively.

Valkin clinched the match with a 6-4, 6-2 defeat of Rory Green before Nguyen added Harvard’s fifth point, winning the super tiebreak at No. 3, 2-6, 6-4, 1-0(8).

Clayton and Kumar dropped matches at the top two singles positions, losing in straight sets after the Crimson’s victory had been secured.

—Staff writer Karan Lodha can be reached at klodha@fas.harvard.edu.