The varsity tennis team gave Princeton's unbeaten Tigers a Scare Saturday, but bowed to the defending Eastern Intercollegiate Tennis League champions, 7-2.

Throughout most of the singles matches it seemed as if the Crimson might break the Tigers' 31-match winning streak, but when two Princeton players rallied to pull out their matches, the door shut on the varsity's hopes.

Big Frank Ripley gave the Crimson its first single win against the Tigers in two years when he walloped Hugh Lynch, 6-4, 6-2, in the number three match, and Doug Walter, number five, outsteadled C.D. Smith in a backcourt duel, 7-5, 6-2.

But Tiger netmen also swept two quick matches: Warren Daane whipped Chum Steele in the number four match, 6-1, 6-0. That left it up to the top two players; both came close, but neither could quite pull out a win.

Captain and number one player Paul Sullivan, blanked 6-0 in the first set by Princeton's Herb Fitzgibbon, came storming back in the second set. He swept the first four games and had a set point at 5-1, but couldn't hold off Fitzgibbon's comeback. The Tiger star swept the next six games to win 7-5.

Vic Niederhoffer dueled Harold German through three sets in the number two match, but came out on the short end of a 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 score.

A sweep of the doubles could still have given the Crimson the match, but it was the Tigers who swept the doubles. Fitzgibbon and Howell walloped Ripley and Niederhoffer 6-3, 6-0; Daane and Tony Thompson beat Sullivan and Steele, 6-3, 6-2, and Lynch and German squeaked past Bob Inman and Dean Peckham, 6-4, 10-8.

The Tigers also won five of the six unofficial matches; Inman beat Thompson in the number seven match, 5-7, 6-2, 6-3, but Princeton swept the other three singles and two doubles matches.