Men's Tennis Looks To Stay Perfect in Ivy League Play

The Harvard men’s tennis team may have won 11 straight matches and may have a 4-0 record in Ivy League play, but its path to a second consecutive Ancient Eight crown is far from assured, and it will take on two more conference foes this weekend.

The Crimson’s road to another title and possible NCAA tournament berth continues this weekend, when it will play its final home match of the season against Brown (12-9, 1-3 Ivy) on Friday and then travel to New Haven to face rival Yale (16-5, 2-2 Ivy) on Sunday.

Harvard (16-4, 4-0 Ivy) enters the matches ranked 22nd in the country after defeating conference foes Princeton and Penn on the road last weekend, but it is not reading too much into its winning momentum, according to head coach Dave Fish.

“We’re only four-sevenths of the way [through the Ivy League season],” he said. “We’re not looking at things and saying that we have great momentum. We’re taking the attitude that everybody will be coming after us, so we’ve got to go after them.”

The Crimson has not only historically dominated the Bears, owning a 75-7 all-time record, but has also held the upper hand in recent tilts. Harvard has won eight of the past nine matches it has played against Brown, including two last season.

The Bears won their Ivy opener against Penn, but have since lost three straight to fall to a tie for sixth place in the Ancient Eight. But their three losses were to Princeton, Columbia, and Cornell, all of whom are ranked 51st or better nationally. The past two defeats also came on the road.

Brown junior Sam Fife has played well lately at fourth singles, winning two of his three Ivy matches, but he will contend with Crimson senior co-captain Andy Nguyen, who has been dominant at the fourth slot with a 12-2 record.

Sophomore Daniel Hirschberg has also anchored the bottom of the lineup for the Bears. Playing in the fifth and sixth spots, he has won each of his four singles matches in conference play.

“The bottom of the Brown lineup is really tough,” Fish said. “The top of our lineup has been doing pretty well in league play, but their lineup is stacked toward the middle and bottom. So we have to try to take some matches, and we’ll take them wherever we can.”

The No. 57 Bulldogs will present their own challenges, even though the Crimson has already beaten Yale this season. Harvard defeated its rival, 4-2, in February at the ECAC Division I Indoor Team Championships in Ithaca, but the squad must now travel to the Bulldogs’ home courts.

“It definitely doesn’t hurt that we played them,” sophomore Shaun Chaudhuri said. “They have some very talented players at the top of their lineup. Harvard-Yale is always a lot of fun, so we’re excited and we’ll fight as hard as we can.”

The Bulldogs currently sit at fourth in the Ivy League, but jumped eight spots in the national rankings after an impressive win over No. 51 Cornell last weekend. Their No. 1 singles player, senior John Huang, has won his last three matches, and No. 2 Marc Powers and No. 4 Martin Svenning are both undefeated in home singles matches this year.

The Crimson’s biggest advantage this weekend may come in doubles play, where it has been rolling. It has taken the doubles point in each of its last 11 matches, and its top tandem of sophomore Denis Nguyen and junior co-captain Casey MacMaster is ranked 52nd in the nation. All three of the team’s regular pairs have winning records in dual play this season.

Despite Harvard’s winning ways this season, it is more focused on day-to-day improvement than the ultimate goal of winning the Ivy League.

“It’s easy to start thinking about Ivy titles, but we really need to concentrate on basics,” Fish said. “Can we move our feet to the next ball? If we execute repeatedly for a whole day, that’s when our efforts will pay off.”

And even if the Crimson is able to complete the home-road sweep this weekend to improve its conference play record to 6-0, its focus will still not change.

“You have to treat all matches with the same intensity,” Fish said. “If, in any given match, we bring five percent less than our best, that’s a 5-2 win for the other team. There’s no breathing room, because everybody wants to knock you off.”

—Staff writer Justin C. Wong can be reached at justinwong@college.harvard.edu.