The warm and sunny climes of the west coast weren’t very hospitable to the Harvard men’s tennis team, which lost two of its three matches over spring break, but retained a prominent national ranking heading into its Ivy League season.
The Crimson—currently ranked No. 31 in the country—now stands at 8-4 after a pair of tough losses to Oklahoma State and Fresno State and a tight win over Santa Barbara last week.
Both the Bulldogs and Cowboys avenged losses to Harvard from earlier in the year.
In the first game of the road trip, Harvard was upset by the Fresno State, who avenged a 5-2 loss in February at the Beren Tennis Center with a 5-2 win on their home courts.
Harvard played without talented junior Oli Choo, who missed all three of the break’s games with an injury. The Crimson—forced to shuffle its doubles lineup to fill Choo’s slot—dropped the doubles point, which had been a strong suit for Harvard all year.
The Crimson gained its only two points of the day from sophomore David Lingman and captain William Lee. Lingman won his No. 1 singles match 6-2, 6-4 over Fresno State’s Nick Sustar, while Lee outlasted Vinny Owens 7-6(8), 6-3.
The Crimson rebounded from that tough loss to the Bulldogs with a 4-3 win over Santa Barbara on Thursday.
Harvard overcame another loss in doubles action and a 3-2 overall deficit to gut out the victory over the Gauchos.
After Santa Barbara took an early 2-0 lead, wins by Lee and freshman Jonathan Chu in the No. 2 and 6 singles positions, respectively, tied the score at 2-2.
Harvard was pushed to the brink of defeat when the Gauchos’ Alex Anselme earned a 7-6, 6-2 victory over sophomore George Turner at No. 4 singles, pulling Santa Barbara within one point of victory.
Junior Mark Riddell and sophomore Chris Chiou came to the Crimson’s rescue, winning at No. 3 and 5 singles.
The victories gave Harvard some valuable momentum heading into Friday’s match against Oklahoma State.
Like the Bulldogs before them, the Cowboys exacted some revenge for their earlier loss to Harvard with a 4-3 win on their home court.
The Crimson took an important first step in the match by capturing the doubles point against No. 51 Oklahoma State. Sophomore George Turner earned Harvard a singles point at the No. 5 spot, beating Oklahoma’s Mike McCarty 6-1, 7-5.
But the Cowboys won four of the other five singles matches to post the overall victory.
Harvard begins its Ivy season this week with another road trip. The Crimson will travel to Cornell on Friday and Columbia on Saturday.
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