The Harvard men's tennis team escapes to warmer climates for the second straight weekend as it travels to the West Coast for the Gaucho Classic, hosted by the University of California at Santa Barbara.

The Crimson (11-3) will begin its spring break early when it takes on the winner of Boise State and the University of San Diego at the Knollwood Tennis Club in sunny Santa Barbara on Friday in the early afternoon.

Harvard is seeded second in the tournament behind No. 5 Southern Methodist University.

The Crimson retained its No.16 place in the latest Intercollegiate Tennis Association national ranking, published on Tuesday, after it went 2-1 at the Blue-Gray Tennis Classic in Montgomery, Alabama.

The Crimson defeated Boise State 4-1 on the opening day of the Classic, but fell to a streaking No. 37 Virginia one day later. Virginia had upset No. 28 Alabama before defeating Harvard, and eventually fell to No. 5 SMU in the semifinals, 4-2.

In its final match at the tournament Harvard defeated Northwestern 4-2. The Crimson finished the tournament in fifth place out of a field of sixteen teams that featured six other squads in the top thirty.

Although the team retained its ranking in the ITA poll, and many of its individual players advanced in the individual rankings, the tournament was cause for some concern.

Harvard's biggest problem of the tournament first showed up in its dual meet against Virginia Commonwealth University prior to the trip to Alabama.

Playing at Old Dominion University, the Crimson dropped the doubles point as the team's No. 1 duo of sophomore James Blake and co-captain Kunj Majmudar was edged out 9-8 by VCU's top doubles team.

Though the team eventually won 5-2, the doubles trouble foretold what was to plague the team throughout the Classic.

In all three of its matches in Montgomery, Harvard lost the doubles point, conceding at least two of its doubles matches to squads of much lower rankings.

Blake and Majmudar lost both its first and second round doubles matches against Boise State and Virginia.

"I think that we got a little bit comfortable with the doubles play; we lost our focus and it began to show," Majmudar said. "We've focused on it in practice this week a lot so all should be well this weekend."

Harvard's No. 3 doubles team of junior John Doran and freshman Cillie Swart lost all three of their matches at the Classic.

Individually the team has been doing quite well. Blake retained his No. 1 singles place in the latest ranking. Earlier in the month he was named the ITA's player of the month for February.