Harvard's women's tennis team took on the best of the Ivy League this weekend at the Ivy League Championships in Hanover, N.H., and emerged with a respectable third-place finish, one notch better than last year's showing.

Despite an impressive performance in Division A action, Harvard, with 24 points, failed to match the play of co-defending champions and perennial Ivy League powers Yale and Princeton. The Elis narrowly edged their foes from New Jersey, 36 points to 34, while Dartmouth rounded out the top four with 16 points.

Coach Peter Felske, who entered the tournament with the strongest Harvard team of his four-year tenure, summed up the netwomen's showing yesterday: "We played well up at the top [of the line-up] and not so well at the bottom."

The Crimson dominated Division A, with Tiina Bougas winning the Ivy singles title after beating Maria Pe in an exciting all-Harvard final. With the momentum swinging from one player to the other several times, Bougas finally prevailed in a match with many three-all games, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3.

En route to the crown, Bougas served up a 6-1, 6-0 shellacking of Yale's Kris DiMambro, who had defeated her in the finals of the New Englands last fall. Equally satisfying was Bougas' 6-3, 6-3 win over top seed Joy Cummings of Princeton in the semis, which avenged Bougas' earlier loss to her Tiger opponent this year and dampened Cummings' undefeated mark in dual match competition this fall.

Yardling Pe faced stiff competition herself on the way to the final, knocking off a Southern California rival, Princeton's Pia Tamaya, and Wendy Wassen of Dartmouth, who has beaten Bougas twice in two years.

Harvard also fared well at doubles in the first division. The Crimson tandem of Pe and Martha Roberts got revenge in the semis against a Yale team to whom they had lost a week ago, but then dropped a tough three-set match to Princeton's undefeated duo of Cummings and Tamayo.

In Division B, Erica Schulman reached the semis, defeating Eli captain Natalya Smith, 6-2, 6-1, before bowing to Princeton's Susan whitney in three sets. Meanwhile Martha Roberts got past a tough Princeton opponent in the first round, but then faltered against a weaker Dartmouth player.

A bad draw in doubles made things difficult for Harvard's B team of Bougas and Schulman, as the netwomen lost in the first round to the eventual winners. Yale's DiMambro and Kathy Dalton, 6-4, 6-1. "We played poorly and they played well," Bougas said yesterday.

The Crimson got absolutely nowhere in Division C, losing in three opening matches. In the singles, Harvard once again drew Princeton and Yale players in the first round. A more favorable draw, perhaps pitting Yale against Princeton, would have permitted the netwomen to score points.

In Division C doubles competition, Harvard's Meg Meyer and Debbie Kalish, after receiving a bye in the first round, dropped a crucial match to a Dartmouth team they had beaten earlier in the season.

The netwomen close out their season at home against Boston College Wednesday.