Summer meant one thing to Harvard's men's tennis team: three months of rehabilitation.
The Crimson is coming off of a disappointing, injury-ridden season. It finished the spring with a meager third-place league finish and a shocking 5-2 loss to Princeton in the NCAA Region I tournament. Both disappointments are partially attributable to injuries to sophomore Todd Meringoff and junior Andrew Rueb--both standout players.
"Injuries just killed us, it's that simple," head coach Dave Fish says. "We had three of our best players out for the key points of the season. If they hadn't gone down, I think the season might have gone a little differently."
Going into the season the team was expected to take the league crown and compete with the elite in NCAA men's tennis. It seemed solid from top to bottom, returning number-one singles player Marshall Burroughs and a host of young upstarts. The team only seemed to corroborate those expectations at the outset: it breezed through the ECAC championships and disposed of fifteenth-ranked Texas Christian and ninth-ranked Louisiana State at the national indoor championships in early spring.
But then came the injuries. First, Meringoff went down in early March, the victim of a deep groin injury. Then Rueb fell victim to a knee injury later that same month. Both had played at number-one and number-two singles, Meringoff going 7-4 and Rueb going 12-3. And both were out for the season.
"Andrew and Todd are both fine singles and doubles players," Fish says. "We aren't the same team without them."
This season the Crimson will be at least a little closer to its maximum potential. Meringoff is still out--"the trainer says that groin injuries can take a long time," Fish says, but Rueb is back. His presence should be felt immediately.
While the team mourned the injuries last spring, they might prove good for its long-term development. A number of young players--junior Dan Chung, sophomore Mitty Arnold and junior Howard Kim, foremost among them, got valuable experience last season. That experience should pay dividends this year.
"We're definitely a deeper team," Fish says. "Some guys who were lower down on the roster had excellent spring seasons."
That depth will be put right to use this fall. The fall season consists of only three meets, but all three are important. The squad opens at the Yale Invitational September 23-25. It then dives into the ECAC Championships October 7-10 and the Rolex Regionals November 4-6. Each meet bears the imprimatur of importance, even if only as general measures of the team's capabilities.
"The key thing about them is that they are big," Fish says. "They'll give us good ideas of where we stand and that's important--we want to do well. But more important, it will give us a chance to develop and get better for the spring season."
And what a spring it will be. While last spring was the team's downfall, this spring promises to be its salvation. Meringoff should be back. Rueb should be in prime form. And the younger players should be even more skilled.
In other words, the team should be better than ever.
"It will be exciting seeing how the year develops," Fish says. "If we can avoid misfortune--and that's a big 'if,' and if the team continues to work hard, we could really do some neat things."
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