Harvard 5, Yale 2

Friday’s game at the Beren Tennis Center proved to be as good as advertised. Yale had defeated the Crimson in the fall’s ECAC championship semifinals, also at the Beren, and accounted for Harvard’s only loss in its 2001 Ivy campaign. Even though the Bulldogs were winless in the Ivies coming into the weekend, they played with the intensity of the team of the fall.

Yale struck first by winning the doubles point. Lee and Chiou, however, got the first win of the day at No. 2 doubles, defeating Dustin West and Ryan Coyle 8-3. Lingman/Chu fell 8-5 at the No. 1 spot, and Riddell/Snyder followed close behind with an 8-5 loss as well.

Four of the six singles matches were close in the beginning, leading to a tense atmosphere that only heightened the importance of each point. Lingman was unable to get anything going early against Eli freshman Ryan Murphy at No. 1, losing the first set 6-2. Lee, too, lost his first set.

In Harvard’s favor, though, several players were rolling. Choo at No. 6 ran Coyle silly in a 6-1 first set victory, and Riddell, at No. 4, opened with a 6-4 set over Johnny Lu. Chu was enmeshed in a first-set war of attrition with Andrew Rosenfeld which was headed towards a tiebreaker, and sophomore Cliff Nguyen, at No. 3, pulled out a tough 6-4 first set over David Goldman.

Slowly, every match and every point started to go Harvard’s way. Chu won his tiebreaker, 7-2, while Riddell and Nguyen were well on their way to finishing off their respective opponents. Snyder, for his part, pointed to the increasingly threatening-looking weather.

“As soon as the clouds came, everybody knew what was going to happen,” he said. “Even if it wasn’t going to rain, we knew that indoors we had an advantage. That gave everyone a mental edge.”

Soon bad weather forced play indoors to the Murr Center, and Harvard did prove much tougher. Riddell and Nguyen completed their big wins and put Harvard up 2-1. Choo locked horns with Coyle in several lengthy games, but despite dropping several match points, held on to win 7-5 in the second, and final, set.

Parallel to Choo’s match, Chu was close to finished as well. A point after Choo’s victory, Chu also gave the crowd an opportunity to cheer when he closed out the 6-2 second set, clinching the match. Lee came back to win in three sets as well.

M. Tennis 5, Yale 2

Cambridge, MA

Doubles