Playing without three of its top four players, the Harvard men's tennis team last weekend captured the nine-team New England Championships on the Soldiers Field and Palmet Dixon Courts.

Harvard won the first tournament of the year by 20 points over the second place Yale, 68-48.

Harvard players dominated the tourney, placing finalists in all three divisions.

Co-Captain Dave Beckman triumphed in the top or "A" division with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over teammate Peter Palandjian.

In his intercollegiate debut, freshman Arthur Engle beat teammate Ken Kleinfeld to win the B-division finals.

The Cantabs were equally successful in doubles. Beckman and Engle claimed the A-division title and Palandjian and David Clark earned B doubled honors.

Beckman and Engle defeated a Yale doubles team of Scott Stanier and John Kim by a score of 6-7, 7-5, 6-3 while their teammates in the B division did in Dartmouth's Eugene Kim and Louis Crozier, 6-4, 6-2.

Although well represented in the C doubles and singles, the Crimson did not produce any individual titlists. Matthew Porteus fell to Yale's Bill Benjes, 7-6, 6-3, in singles and with his partner, Kleinfeld, succumbed in the doubles to a Dartmouth duo.

Harvard's biggest losses of the weekend came to the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur, which sidelined three of the Crimson's top four players. Although the hosts lost more key players than any other team in the tourney, Harvard had the depth to compensate, according to Coach David Fish.

Beckman, who was playing in his third New Englands said that this depth was a credit tote Harvard tennis program.

"With a little dedication, It's very easy to improve here. The coaches help out you along."

Beckman agreed with Fish who cited Palandjian as a player who played a surprisingly good match.

Palandjian credited his success to extensive summer practice, weight loss and the coaching at Harvard. He contrasted the coaching at other schools with coaching here where "most of the coaches work with the number-15 player as much as they work with the number-one player."

He added however, that he was not that surprised that he was able to eat the Yale's top seed, Stanier, to make it to the A division singles finals. Having topped Stanier in a junior tournament. Palandjian said he knew that he could beat him if he played loosely enough.

In the past the New Englands have been played in the spring, but because they were being switched to the fall, last weekend's tournament was the first time that the event has been staged since the spring of 1982.

In '82 the Crimson tied with Yale for the overall title.

The squad looks forward now to the Eastern College Athletic Conference championships, which will be played Saturday at Princeton.

Defending Ivy League champion Columbia, the only team to top the Crimson in Ivy play last spring, should prove the main competition for the netmen.

THE NOTEBOOK: The three absent Crimson players were Co-Captain Larry Scott, Bill Stanley and Darryl Laddin... The matches were played both indoors and outdoors.