Men's Tennis Opens Fall Season at Home

The Harvard men’s tennis team just wrapped up its first tournament of the season this weekend, but the Crimson already looks a lot like last season’s Ivy League-winning team.

Harvard hosted its annual fall tournament, the Harvard Chowder Fest at the Beren Center, and invited top teams UC Berkeley, Tulsa, and San Diego to compete as it kicks off its bid to win a third straight Ancient Eight title.

The tournament was not played in the typical dual play format, but rather in a “mock dual” format designed to maximize exposure to different teams and emphasize individual matches over team scoring.

“The idea is to play each match to completion, which gives us a good idea of how they went,” junior Shaun Chaudhuri said. “We want to know things we need to improve on, and what we did well.”

On Sunday, the Crimson played singles against No. 25 Tulsa, which fell to Baylor in the Round of 32 in the NCAA tournament last year.

“By this point in the weekend, we were all hurting,” junior Alex Steinroeder said. “But we all came out and played well, and I thought it was a very strong end to what was a good weekend.”

On Saturday, Harvard played singles against USD, and then doubles against Cal.

The Crimson was able to capture five out of the seven singles matches, all in two sets. Freshmen Sebastian Beltrame and Brian Yeung both easily captured their matches, and sophomore Kelvin Lam also cruised to a 6-2, 6-1 win. Chaudhuri, playing at No. 4, won 6-2, 6-3, and sophomore Nicky Hu took a 6-4, 6-1 win.

Only Steinroeder and fellow junior Denis Nguyen, playing in the top two singles spots, fell to their San Diego counterparts.

In doubles against Cal, Nguyen and senior co-captain Casey MacMaster, who are ranked No. 20 in the country, cruised to an 8-2 victory in the top slot, but three new pairings fell. Yeung and Steinroeder, Hu and Beltrame, and Lam and sophomore Nick Mahlangu all lost close matches.

“Saturday was another strong team outing,” Steinroeder said. “Everyone really showed that they’d been working hard this summer. No freshman lost a match, which was really cool to see.”

Friday’s action featured the Crimson against the Golden Bears in singles, followed by doubles against USD.

Harvard again took five out of the seven singles matches against Cal, who finished last season ranked 17th nationally. Chaudhuri and junior Henry Steer were the only blemishes on the Crimson’s record.

Nguyen looked strong in taking a 6-5, 6-1 win on the first court over the Golden Bears’ Gregory Bayane, and Steinroeder also rolled to a 6-0, 6-2 victory at No. 3. Hu, playing at No. 4, beat freshman Andre Goransson, 6-4, 5-7, 6-3.

Two Harvard freshmen also notched impressive three-set wins. Beltrame rebounded from a poor first set to take down Cal junior Nikhil Jayashankar 1-6, 6-2, 6-4, and freshman Andrew Ball beat Wyatt Houghton, 7-5, 3-6, 6-3.

On the doubles court, Nguyen and MacMaster again rolled to an easy 8-3 win, and the second team of Steinroeder and Yeung took an 8-4 win. Lam and Mahlangu won, 8-5.

“Friday was an impressive performance for our first matches of the season, especially after only starting practice on Tuesday,” Steinroeder said. “We were that strong against that good of a team, and we finished strong that night against USD too.”

Despite the impressive performance, the Crimson still has much to work on—namely, it must find suitable doubles tandems if it wants to repeat the dominance it achieved last year. While the top duo of MacMaster and Nguyen is set, the other spots are in flux as the team works its new freshmen into the lineup.

“I’ve been playing with Brian, and he has a really good doubles game,” Steinroeder said. “We had a good match against USD, and lost tight ones in the other two. If the coaches keep us together, I think we can be good.”

Still, it was a good weekend for Harvard, and gives the team hope as it prepares to get its first look at its conference rivals at next weekend’s Ivy Tournament in New Haven.

“It was really encouraging to see that everyone came ready to battle,” Chaudhuri said. “Our goal is to keep improving each day, and at the end of the season we’ll be leagues ahead of where we are now.”

—Staff writer Justin C. Wong can be reached at justincwong94@gmail.com.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: September 17, 2013

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the class years of Shaun Chaudhuri and Alex Steinroeder. In fact, they are juniors, not sophomores.