Five embers of the Harvard men's tennis team begin competition today and tomorrow in the NCAA individual championships.

Harvard's lone singles representative, Michael Zimmerman, is seeded in the 9-16 bracket and begins competition today against Georgia's Bobby Mariencheck in Athens, Ga.

Although Zimmerman is the strong favorite to win, he must overcome a president wrist injury which kept him out of doubles competition against Darke last Friday.

Hot Opponent

And the Mather senior has the unenviable task of challenging a hot opponent: Mariencheck, ranked Harvard's Albert Chang 5-7, 6-2, 6-2, during the team tournament to bring his record (as of Saturday) in post-season action to 5-0 in singles, 3-0 in doubles over his two-year collegiate career.

Nonetheless, Zimmerman (ranked fourteenth in the nation) has a strong change of advancing to the second round where he will face either David Eckerot of USC or Eric Fahnestock of Oklahoma State.

If Harvard does make its mark nationally, it will likely be in doubles competition, which begins tomorrow.

Snubbed

Zimmerman and Co-Captain Mike Shyjan were snubbed by the selection committee Monday, failing to secure one of the eight seedings. Because of that, Harvard's top doubles tandem, once ranked as high as second in the nation, is now in a bracket with the most formidable team in collegiate tennis: Jon Leach and Brain MacPhie of USC.

If Zimmerman does not reinjure his wrist, the Harvard duo could make a significant showing. It faces California-Santa Barbara's David Decret and Laszlo Markovitz in the opening round tomorrow.

Harvard's other doubles team, senior Albert Chang and freshman Andrew Rueb, will take on USC's David Fkerot and Andras Lanyi in the opening round tomorrow as well.

Chang-Rueb are currently unranked, while Fkerot-Lanyi are 11th in the nation.

Zimmerman Honored

Even though he was forced to miss several games this season due to injuries, Zimmerman continued to earn kudos from regional organizations this past week for his performance this spring.

The Eastern Intercollegiate Tennis Association (EITA) ,which includes the eight Ivy schools plus Army and Navy, named Zimmerman as Player of the Year for the second straight time.

The Great neck, N.Y.-resident shares the award this year with Dartmouth's Matt Semlar.

The Intercollegiate Tennis Coaches Association (ITCA), however, gave Zimmerman its top award outright, honoring him as region I Player of the Year, putting him in the running for the national award along with representative from the seven other regions.

The ITCA selection committee consists of seven coaches, four from EITA schools. Region I ecompasses schools from West Virginia, Washington D.C. and all states northward. through Maine.

Chang,Too

In addition to the Player of the Year award, the EITA announced its other league honors as well as last week. Zimmerman and Chang were named to the All-EITA singles team, while Zimmerman and Shyjan were named to the doubles squad.