The Harvard tennis team easily demolished an Amherst squad yesterday, 9-0, in an indoor contest held at Palmer Dixon.
"The Amherst players just didn't have enough experience to really compete with us," Harvard tennis coach Jack Barnaby said yesterday. "The only good match was at number one between (Gary) Reiner and John Bates."
Reiner handily defeated Bates in the singles finals of the New England Championships last weekend, but had to fight off three match points by Bates to win yesterday Bates took the first set. 7-6 Reiner came back to dominate the second 6-3 Reiner won the third set, 7-5 only after breaking Bates serve twice.
The freshman team also had an easy afternoon in its match against Amherst as it won 8-1. The squad swept the six singles matches and only dropped one doubles match.
The Eastern Tennis League title will be decided this weekend when the Crimson meets the top ranked Princetontans. The closest the tigers have come to losing a match in two years was to Harvard last May In that contest the Crimson lost only one a tiebreaker in the ninth match.
"Princeton has to be the favorite" Barnaby said, "but if we can rise to the heights, we can beat them It would just have to be a hell of an effort."
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