The last chance would come at Ithaca Sunday. Singles victories rolled in like dominoes for the Crimson, and with the score 6-0 Fish gave the nod to Roberts. He would play at number three with roommate Chaikovsky, an NCAA doubles qualifier last season.

Playing against Scott Walker (Cornell's, not Harvard's) and a player described only as a "bearded lefty with a big serve," Roberts and Chaikovsky snatched the first set 6-4, before dropping the second, 7-5.

The match stayed on serve throughout the third set until, with Roberts serving at 5-6, Cornell took three straight points and needed but one of the next four to win the match.

The other two doubles matches had resulted in easy Harvard wins, so the whole Crimson squad gathered around the court now in a huddled silence. Roberts served and after an extended rally hit a desperation lob high into the lights. "There's no way you can see the ball in those lights," Chaikovsky said. "The guy hit it off the top of his racquet, and the ball landed about four courts down."

The Crimson then knotted the game at 3-all on a backpedaling putaway overhead by Chaikovsky ("It was the craziest shot") and a putaway volley by Roberts.

On the fourth consecutive match point, Roberts followed his second serve with a deep backhand volley and a fully-extended overhead winner that Shaw called "very close" and Chaikovsky called "very out."

"It was about a foot out," Chaikovsky said, only half-kidding, "but Kirsch and Horne (a pair of exuberant Harvard players) were right there, and they started going berserk before the call was made. Bill and I turned around and walked back, so Cornell couldn't really call it out."

Three more match points ensued when the Crimson dropped four of the first six tiebreaker points. At 2-4, Chaikovsky served, then hit four straight volleys, the last of which caught the net and hung in the air for the "bearded lefty." "He whaled on it, and it hit like the back screen," Chaikovsky said. At 3-4, Cornell missed the return, and the tension-filled match boiled down to one final, glorious, gut-wrenching point (is that one adjective too many?).

With Roberts "frozen" according to Shaw, Chaikovsky became the Bionic Volleyer, playing eight straight balls but putting none away. Finally, the Big Red launched a deep lob to Roberts' side, hit an overhead smash that neither Cornell player had a chance for.

Shadow Dance

Roberts and Chaikovsky, the roommates and highly improbable doubles partners, dropped their racquets and embraced. The entire team mobbed them in a made, impromptu dance. The Cornell players, unaware of the circumstances (and nobody was going to tell them, either) shook their heads in supreme puzzlement.

In the middle of the eight-hour ride back, coach Dave Fish--a teetotaler--surprised the team by reversing the van's direction at one point, backtracking about a half-mile, and pulling into a little bar.

The season-ending match, Fish figured, was cause for a celebration drink. They hadn't beaten powerhouse Princeton, and they hadn't won the league. But they had done pretty well, everyone thought. And, besides, the manager had helped the boys sweep Cornell.

Now that called for a toast.