It doesn't get much better than this.

Everything the Harvard men's tennis team could have expected from this fall has been achieved after this weekend's ITA Men's Eastern Region Championships.

The tournament is the final fall event for the teams and the last opportunity for individual players to make a statement on the national level before the spring.

The Harvard players did just that.

Co-captain Kunj Majmudar decided that competing in the Rolex/ITA National Indoor Championships as a doubles tandem with sophomore James Blake simply was not good enough. The senior wanted to play alongside his partner in the singles draw as well, and he earned that right by reaching the finals of the tournament.

However, the best result, and the biggest surprise of the tournament, was the Crimson duo of co-captain Mike Passarella and junior Scott Clark winning the doubles title.

The Crimson squad--the third team on Harvard's own depth chart--entered the tournament as the eighth seed, but exceeded all expectations by defeating Penn State's Eric Meditz and Marc Dorfman, 7-5, 6-3, in the finals. The victory qualified the team for the Rolex Nationals as the Region I representative.

"This feels pretty good as a senior," Passarella said. "I finally get to play in one of these big tournaments. We were confident going in, especially because James [Blake] and Kunj [Majmudar] weren't playing and there isn't another dominant team in the region."

The Crimson team scored its biggest win in the quarterfinals where it faced the top-seeded and 10th-ranked team in the nation, Adam and Aaron Marchetti from Virginia Tech.

"We all knew that this was the big match because there had been a lot of upsets in the draw," Passarella said. "We knew whoever won this match would be in pretty good position."

In a match that was epic in its both length and competitiveness, Clark and Passarella dropped the first set 5-7 after having been broken in the set's last game.

Passarella, known for his ability to prevail in tough three-set matches, proved that his tenaciousness carried-over into doubles play as well. A strategic change--the Crimson team decided to play two back on their opponent's first serves--paved the way for a hard-fought turnaround.

The Crimson team got down early but broke at 1-3 after making the switch to the two-back formation.

The change allowed the team to rip off four straight games and take what appeared to be a commanding 5-3 lead with momentum in hand.

However, the best teams in the nation don't fall apart under pressure, and the Marchettis held to make it 5-4 and then broke to tie the set at 5-5.