All great seasons eventually come to an end. Unfortunately for the 1996 edition of the Harvard men's tennis squad, this year ended about three days too early.

On Saturday, the Crimson were defeated 4-1 by the No. 4 Mississippi State Bulldogs (23-8) in the opening round of the NCAA national tennis championship tournament. The loss eliminated the Crimson and propelled the Bulldogs into a final eight matchup with the Georgia Bulldogs.

Harvard (21-9), which qualified for the championships by upsetting No. 12 Florida last week in the finals of the Eastern regionals, has never advanced beyond the round of 16, falling for the seventh time in this situation. It has not gone this far since 1992.

"We're trying to build every year, to go a little further and raise our competitive level," co-captain and No. 2 singles player Todd Meringoff said. "We certainly did that this year."

Saturday's match, played at the McWhorter Hall Courts in Athens, Georgia, began with Mississippi St. winning the doubles point, 2-1.

At No. 3 doubles, the Bulldog's team of Thomas Dupree and Dan Healey beat freshmen Mike Passarella and Elliot Weiss, 8-4. At the No. 2 spot, the No. 33 ranked doubles team Matt Ballay and Mattias Karlson duplicated that result for the Bulldogs, triumphing over sophomores Thomas Blake and Philip Tseng.

The lone bright spot for the Crimson shone through at the No. 1 doubles spot. Junior Mitty Arnold and Meringoff, the No. 21 ranked doubles team in the country, defeated Mississippi State's Matt Pledger and Kristian Broems, 8-5.

After claiming the doubles point, Mississippi St. confidently entered the singles competition where they have dominated most of their opponents all year.

However, Harvard was not going to quickly concede the match. The Crimson quickly tied the match at one when Tseng, continuing his torrid play, dominated Pledger in straight sets, 6-3, 6-3.

The tie score was short lived, however. After the loss at the No. 4 slot, the SEC tournament champion Bulldogs took command of the match for good with simultaneous victories at the No. 1 and No. 3 positions.

At the No. 3 slot, Karlsson broke Arnold's serve to take a 5-4 second set advantage en route to a 6-2, 6-4 triumph.

Meanwhile, on the first court, Blake was battling the Bulldog's Dupre, the ninth ranked collegiate singles player in the nation.

Unfortunately for the Crimson, Blake could not duplicate his magical play of just one week ago when he defeated the nation's No. 7 player, 6-4, 7-5. In a very similar type of match, Dupre broke Blake's serve late in the second set and then held his own serve to seal a 6-4, 7-5 victory.

Those victories gave the Bulldogs a commanding 3-1 lead with just three matches left to be decided. The clinching victory came on the second court where No. 36 Ballay, after squandering a 4-0 second set lead, held on to claim a 6-3, 7-5 triumph over No. 66 Meringoff.

With the overall outcome decided, the remaining matches were pulled off of the fifth and sixth courts. Unfortunately for the Crimson, they held commanding leads in both of those matches. At the No. 5 slot, freshman Kunj Majmudar led Broems 6-3, 6-6, while in the sixth slot senior Dan Chung held a 6-4, 4-2 lead over Andre DeOliveira.

The 4-1 loss ended an extremely successful 1996 campaign for the young Crimson team. However, individually, three of Harvard's best players still have matches to play.

The doubles team of Arnold and Meringoff will remain in Athens until later in the week when they compete for the nation's individual doubles title. Meringoff and Blake will both compete in the singles championship as well.

MISSISSIPPI STATE, 4-1 at McWhorter Hall Tennis Courts, Athens, GA

Singles

1. Dupre (Miss. St.) def. Blake (Harvard), 6-4, 7-4; 2. Ballay (M) def. Meringoff (H), 6-3, 7-5; 3. Karlsson (M) def. Arnold (H), 6-2, 7-5; 4. Tseng (H) def. Pledger (M), 6-3, 6-3; 5. Majmudar (H) led Broems (M), 6-3, 6-6 (suspended); 6. Chung (H) led DeOliveira (M), 6-4, 4-2 (susp).

Doubles

1. Arnold/Meringoff (H) def. Broems/Pledger (M), 8-5; 2. Ballay/Karlsson def. Blake/Tseng (H), 8-4; 3. Dupre/Healey (M) def. Passarella/Weiss (H), 8-4. Harvard  1 Miss. St  4