AMHERST, Mass.--This weekend's New England Championships were the scene of elation and frustration for the Harvard women's tennis team.
Captain Martha Roberts teamed with freshman Maria Pe to fulfill a four-year dream by capturing the doubles crown. But for Meg Meyer, Debbie Kalish, Erica Schulman, and defending singles champion Tiina Bougas, the last, poorly run day of the tournament held nothing but disappointment and a second-place team showing, two points behind Yale.
Playing in the semi-finals of the consolation singles draw, Schulman was mistakenly instructed by an official to play a ten-game pro set rather than the scheduled two out of three set match. In an early morning contest, she sleepily fell behind, 0-5, before hitting her groove. But in such a short match, her comeback was doomed to fall short, 6-10.
Looking for her second straight New England singles title, Bougas had the longest day of any player on the courts: Playing perhaps her toughest opponent in the region, Yale's Diana Piotrow, Bougas had to stage a strong comeback to take a 5-7, 6-3, 6-2 decision in a three-hour and 20-minute semi-final match.
Forced to move on to her finals showdown less than one hour later, Bougas finally ran out of gas. In an exhausted state, she bowed, 6-2, 6-3, to Yale's Kris Di Mambro.
All of this adversity could not dampen the spirits of the Crimson netwomen, however.
Roberts went all the way to the doubles finals in this tournament her freshman year before dropping a tough match, and she had been equally frustrated in her last two campaigns. Determined to "go out in style my senior year." Roberts joined with Pe to take home a tense 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 triumph in the finals. Caught up in the celebration following their victory, the selfeffacing Pe captured the spirit of the moment when she said, "I really didn't want to win it as much for myself as I did for Martha."
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