Women's tennis at Harvard joined the major leagues of college competition in 1978, and the move did not come without its share of trauma.

The netwomen took their lumps from top--flight opponents, but they wound up wiser and better players for the experience.

A season highlight was the appearance of Sports Illustrated's "Face in the Crowd" and the Crimson's Miss Everything, Betsy Richmond. A freshman, the exactly-five-foot Richmond won the individual events in the New England, Greater Boston and Massachusetts State championships.

Now Richmond has decided to take the first six months of this year off, and she is a question mark for the spring season. So the field is wide open for the young--one senior lost to graduation--and talented remaining players.

Proof that talent was not only at the top of the ladder came last year when the Crimson took the team title in the Mass State tourney, tied for first in the GBCs and finished third in the New Englands.

Competition for Richmond's vacated spot should be tough. Junior Martha Roberts, number one her freshman year, rates as the favorite, but classmate Meg Meyer, who took over as team captain last year, should press Roberts for the top slot.

Sally Roberts, now graduated, Martha Roberts and Meyer got a chance to hone their strokes this summer when a combined Harvard and Yale women's team traveled to England in June. The trip's highlight came when the trio triumphed in the team's victory over a combined Oxford and Cambridge team on June 17.

Coach Peter Felske also has plans for freshman Tina Bougas, a Brookline, Mass., native who is ranked No. 2 in the 18-and-under class in New England. He also hopes Abby Meiselman, the sophomore who came on very strong playing number four in the spring of her freshman year, can move up in the lineup.

Since the schedule offers little relief from the rigors of last year, the Crimson faces another year of improvement and possibly slim pickings in the win column.

The Ivy League poses some of the country's toughest competition, with Yale and Princeton leading the way. And the annual foray into the South during spring break borders on the masochistic: the Crimson endured consecutive 9-0 drubbings at North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Duke and Virginia last year.

However, the fall part of the season could offer the best opportunities of the year for Harvard wins. In addition to the same three tournaments as last year, three potential victories in dual matches seem possible. But when spring's big kids from the South and fall's monsters from the Ivies confront the racquetwomen, the new kids in the big-time tennis world still might get picked on.