Harvard women's tennis Coach Gordon Graham loaded his team's early spring schedule with a slew of difficult matches against top 15 opponents.

The Crimson received serious battle scars traveling to No. 6 Pepperdine, No. 8 Mississippi and No. 12 Vanderbilt, losing each match badly.

Somewhere along the way, Harvard learned something about elite tennis, and facing mere Ivy opponents became easy by comparison.

Harvard (6-10, 2-0 Ivy) breezed through its Ancient Eight opening weekend dominating Columbia 7-2 on Friday and Cornell 8-1 on the road Saturday.

"Our matches early on were at a different level of tennis," freshman Andrea Magyera said. "They really prepared the team for our games now."

The strong performance heartened the Crimson, two-time defending Ivy League champs. It graduated three seniors and needed to reassert its dominance over the division.

The competition, however, once again grows tougher this weekend. Two of the strongest Ivy teams, Penn and Princeton stroll into Cambridge for its first home weekend.

"We're gonna have tougher matches this week," Magyera said. "[Penn and Princeton] are the teams to beat."

Harvard will hope to keep showing the league how much it's learned.

Harvard 7, Columbia 2

Harvard set the tone for the weekend early on Friday, sweeping the singles matches down the line.

Only No. 1 Vedica Jain, a junior, had any difficulty dispatching her Lion opponent, needing three sets to win 6-1, 4-6, 7-5.

"Columbia played pretty well," Jain said. "I was just playing as aggressive as I could."

The rest of the individual competition was a rout paced by a 6-0, 6-1 win by No. 4 Maygera and a 6-3, 6-3 victory by freshman Fleur Broughton.

Sophomore Sanaz Ghazal, junior Roxanna Curto, and junior Aparna Ravi also came out on the positive side of the ledger.

The Lions fared surprisingly better in doubles competition, stunning the Crimson by taking two of three matches.

The No. 1 double team of Ghazal and Broughton fell in the most tense match of the day.

The No. 3 pair of junior Kristen Flink and Curto took the other Harvard loss.

Flink and Curto, however, had just been paired before the match due to a knee injury by freshman Sarah McGinty, Curto's usual partner.

McGinty is expected to play this weekend.

"We had a strong day overall," Jain said. "But two doubles losses shouldn't happen."

Of course, Harvard's single's strength reduced any Lion win to a moral victory.

"We were dominant," Fleur said. "We gained a lot of experience early on in the season and it really helped us."

Harvard 8, Cornell 1

When the Crimson traveled from the City that Never Sleeps to just plain sleepy Ithaca it grew even more dominant.

All doubles woes from the previous day simply melted away as Harvard swept all three Big Red pairs, supposedly stronger than their Lion counterparts.

Jain and Magerya, promoted to No. 1, defeated Michelle Deyen and Ngozi Amobi 8-3. Ghazal and Broughton rebounded for a 9-7 victory at No. 2.

Lastly, Curto and Flink found their chemistry smoking Becky Sendrow and Carolyn Zakrevsky 8-2.

"Our doubles teams are really strong," Maygerya said. "We caught a couple of bad breaks Friday, but played very well [Saturday]."

In individual play, the Big Red drew Harvard out for some longer matches, but only Ravi at No. 6 could not find a way to win, dropping in three sets, 2-6, 6-1, 1-6.

Magyera and Broughton again led the way for Harvard sailing through their matches 6-2, 6-3 and 6-1, 6-2, respectively.

"Personally, I was playing strong tennis," Broughton said. "I was playing very patiently and picking my shots well."

The Crimson players seemed in complete control of their other singles matches. Ghazal and Curto's matches needed three sets, but the Harvard players dictated the play.

Jain won again at No. 1, defeating Deyen 7-5, 6-4.

" [The Ivy League] is a different level of play," Magyera. "Our experience allows us to be in control on the court, always in the driver's seat."