Men's Tennis Splits Weekend Action

The Harvard men’s tennis team kicked off its Ivy title defense this weekend and immediately faced tough tests against No. 19 Columbia and No. 46 Cornell.

The No. 34 Crimson (12-6, 1-1 Ivy) had an uneven road trip, getting blanked by the surging Lions (16-1, 3-0), 7-0, on Saturday, before turning things around against the Big Red (10-7, 0-3) Sunday afternoon.

Columbia, undefeated in conference play, represents perhaps the biggest obstacle to Harvard’s three-peat chances.

“Yesterday was a tough loss, but [the Lions] are very good on their home courts,” junior co-captain Alex Steinroeder said. “They are playing well and are tough to beat, but anything is possible in Ivies.”

HARVARD 5, CORNELL 2

Harvard skillfully handled both the brisk Ithaca early-spring weather and Cornell to hand the Big Red its third straight conference loss.

In doubles, the Crimson jumped out to a 1-0 lead, marking a turnaround after having to play from behind on Saturday. Sophomore Nicky Hu and freshman Brian Yeung closed out a 8-6 win, and the team’s top tandem of co-captain Casey MacMaster and junior Denis Nguyen followed suit with an 8-5 mark to hand Harvard the advantage.

“We haven’t won a lot of doubles points this year against the really good teams,” Harvard coach Dave Fish said. “Today we played some good tennis and got back on track.”

In singles, Steinroeder did the early damage, cruising to a 6-2, 6-2 win. Freshman Andrew Ball then fell at No. 6 to make the match score 2-1.

Yeung proceeded to crush a serve on match point on the fifth court to finish off a two-set win and bring the Crimson to the precipice of victory. Junior Shaun Chaudhuri would seal the deal, coming back from a set deficit to close out the win in three.

Freshman Sebastian Beltrame picked up a victory, but Nguyen lost in a third-set tiebreak to make up the final 5-2 score.

“Our job going forward is focusing on our matches and not worrying about how other teams are doing,” Steinroeder said. “We did a great job of doing that today, bouncing back with a great, hard-fought win.”

COLUMBIA 7, HARVARD 0

In its first foray into Ivy League play, the Crimson attempted to avenge a 4-0 defeat at the hands of the Lions in the final round of the ECAC Team Championships in February.

But things didn’t go as planned for Harvard in its first test at defending its Ancient Eight crown, as Columbia dropped the Crimson, 7-0, in a match that was much closer than the final score indicated.

In doubles, Yeung and Hu went down on the second court, 8-4, but the other two matches were tightly contested. Beltrame and junior Christo Schultz fell just shy on court three, 8-7. In the heavyweight battle between No. 11 MacMaster and Nguyen and Columbia’s No. 12 Ashok Narayana and Max Schnur, the hosts came out just ahead, 8-7, and the Lions took the early 1-0 lead.

In singles, Harvard came out strong, winning the first set at the third, fourth, and fifth positions. But Beltrame was the first to go down, falling 6-2, 6-0 on court two. The rest of the five singles matches would go three sets each, but the Crimson didn’t come away with any victories.

Ball lost on the sixth court, 6-1, 5-7, 7-5, and then Chaudhuri fell at No. 3, 1-6, 6-3, 6-2, to officially give Columbia the four points it needed for victory. Steinroeder suffered defeat on the fourth court before the other two matches were stopped to give the Lions their 7-0 final margin.

“We lost a close doubles point,” Steinroeder said. “We fought very hard in singles and had a lot of close matches, but came up short in all of them.”

As the Crimson progresses through what promises to be a tightly contested Ivy schedule, it must learn to bounce back. Many matches are scheduled as weekend doubleheaders, and according to Steinroeder, the team needs to have a short memory if it falters in the first match.

“[The Cornell] match really showed our resiliency after losing [Saturday],” Steinroeder said. “We’ll have to use that same resiliency going forward with the rest of our season.”

—Staff writer Justin C. Wong can be reached at justin.wong@thecrimson.com.