In the doubles bracket, Burroughs and Wallooppillai again qualified in a preliminary tournament, joining Chang and Rueb, and Brown and Ian Williams.

Burroughs and Wallooppillai lost in the second round to third-seeded Greg Hartch and Dave Murphy of Princeton, while Brown and Williams advanced to the semifinals, equalling Harvard's feat in the singles bracket of occupying two out of the final four positions.

Rueb attributed this to the outstanding preparation of the players by the coaching staff.

"[Coach] Dave [Fish] and [Coach] Greg [Russell] told us it was time for us to reap the benefits of all the work we had done," Rueb said. "We just went out and reaped."

Home Stretch

In the finals, Chang and Rueb blew away the West Virginian team of Booras and Rodrigo Gonzalez in straight sets, 6-3, 6-2.

"They really didn't have much a chance," Rueb said. "Albert [Chang] was playing so well, I just had to sit back and pick off the easy volleys."

Chang and Rueb's victory qualifies them for the National Indoor Championships, scheduled to be held this February.

They will join Zimmerman and Shyjan, who had already qualified because of their high national ranking.

Zimmerman entered the tournament hoping to ease himself back into the competitive tennis scene.

But he was forced on the defensive right from the start. Marc Price of Penn State stetched Zimmerman to a second-set tiebreaker before falling, 7-5, 7-6.

In the quarterfinals, Zimmerman survived another scare, this time from Jeff Morneau of Providence. Morneau came out strong but faded, 6-7, 6-1, 7-6.

"I had a really tough draw," Zimmerman said. "But it forced me to get tougher, faster, instead of taking it easy."

Chang, Harvard's top singles player, was upset in the second round by Michael Phillips of Central Connecticut State, 2-6, 6-3, 7-6.

Chang redeemed himself in the doubles bracket, though, and Zimmerman slammed Phillips in the semifinals, 6-0, 6-1, settling the account.