Shiras broke Walker's serve on a three-all point in the ninth game of the third set, then cruised home in the 12th game to win, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.
And then there was Lundy. Alone on the floor with Princeton's Brightfield, the Crimson captain needed a victory to keep Harvard's chances alive, at least mathematically. Serving erratically but playing his incredibly solid game throughour, Lundy brought home the bacon after laboring back and forth with Brightfield for more than two hours.
After the pain had produced identical 6-4 set victories, the whole match's outcome came down to a single point when the third set ended at six-all and the subsequent tiebreaker went to four a piece.
Lundy served to Brightfield's backhand, then drove the Tiger's return deep to the ad-court and on the tape. Brightfield gamely rifled a backhand return, but Mr. Lundy stroked a crisp forehand volley cross-court for the winner.
The Tigers seemed a sure bet to clinch the match by taking at least one of the doubles matches, and they made good on that bet in dramatic fashion when they concluded three close straight-set victories within the space of a minute or two.
Oficially, the Tigers iced the win at number two, where Brightfield and Zimmerman came back from a 4-1 deficit in the second set to defeat Shaw and a by-then suffering Walker, 4-and-5. At third doubles, Pompan and Greg Kirsch choked away a first-set tiebreaker, 5-3, and went on to lose to Gross and Meister.
And at one, Harvard never really had a chance after Princeton coach Dave Benjamin wheeled out freshman cannon Jay Lapidus, the Tiger ace who had sat out the singles with a swollen ankle. Lundy and Chaikovsky put up a game fight, but Lapidus and Shiras proved more than equal to the task, as they prevailed, 6-4, 7-6.
After the match, the scoreboard told the sad tale--7-5 in the third, 6-4 in the second; 6-4 in the third; 7-6 in the second with a 5-3 tiebreaker; 7-5 in the second; 7-6 in the second; 7-6, 6-3 with a 5-3 breaker.
There were a lot of ifs on that scoreboard--but then, you know, there's this old Ukrainian saying....