On Saturday afternoon at the Murr Center, the Harvard women's tennis team played host to No. 26 Miami.

And despite some gutsy, determined play, the Crimson (2-7, 1-1 Ivy) was unable to handle the Hurricanes in the singles portion of the meet, as Miami won five of six singles matches, clinching the victory before the doubles round began.

The Crimson fell to the Hurricanes by a final margin of 6-3.

But Miami's victory was not nearly as lopsided as the scoreboard would have you believe. Most of the matches were very highly contested.

"We really weren't that far away from them," said sophomore Roxanna Curto. "We played them very close, we just weren't able to pull out any of the matches."

Curto, playing in the No. 6 position, claimed the only victory for Harvard in the singles competition. She faced off against senior Sophie Cortina in high tension, three-set contest. MIAMI MIAMI

Curto took the first set, 7-5. But plagued bysome untimely unforced errors, she dropped thesecond to Cortina, 6-3. In the final set, however,Curto was able to pull her game together, usingsuperior pace on her groundstrokes and serve toclose out the match, 6-4.

"In the first two sets I was making a lot ofmistakes and not doing my best, but in the third Ifelt like I was finally playing well," Curto said."This was an important match for me, because Ifigured out a way to win despite making a lot oferrors."

Unfortunately for Harvard, this was the onlysingles match that it would pull out.

At the No. 1 position, junior Vedica Jain hungtough with hard-hitting sophomore LioudmilaSkavronskaia. After dropping the first set 6-1,Jain managed to regroup, taking the second, 7-5,to even the match. But Skavronskaia's incrediblepower proved to be too much in the end, as Jainfinally fell in the third set, 6-1.

Fleur Broughton, playing in the No. 4 slot forHarvard, also took her opponent to the limit insingles competition. Facing sophomore AlannaBroderick, Broughton took the first set in atiebreaker. Broderick, however, quickly recovered,winning the final two sets, and the match, 6-2,6-1.

In the No. 2 position, Crimson sophomore SanazGhazal took on sophomore Katia Bogomolova.Although Ghazal battled throughout, Bogomolova wasable to handle her, winning the match in straightsets, 6-3, 6-3.

Harvard freshman Andrea Magyera played a veryclose match with freshman Marcy Hora at the No. 3slot, but also fell in straight sets, 6-4, 7-5.

At No.5, freshman Jenny Timoney was unable toget anything going for Harvard in her matchagainst junior Evqa Jimenez, as she fell 6-0, 6-0.

With the match already in hand, Miamivoluntarily defaulted in the No. 3 doubles match,but still played for the No. 1 and No. 2positions.

Despite playing only for pride at this point,Harvard remained focused and poised, playing itsbest tennis of the afternoon in the doubles round.