“I don’t think she really has any weaknesses,” Bergman said. “I’m just going to have to break her down. A key against her is keeping the ball deep and then attacking and coming into the net.”
Pirsu is also a strong doubles player. She combined with Shelah Chao to win the Eastern Region Doubles Championship last fall. The two have since been split up, but Penn’s doubles are still strong. Neither Penn nor Harvard has lost an Ivy doubles match so far.
If Harvard can win the Ivy title, it will be among the youngest teams ever to do so, with Bajin the lone regular competitor among the junior and senior classes. Bajin has watched the team grow into a legitimate national contender in the past two years, while her role has changed from Harvard’s No. 1 player to its undefeated No. 5 player.
“I guess I was a little more naïve when I was younger just because I didn’t know how hard it really is to win a championship and how much of a whole team effort it was,” Bajin said. “It’s really easy to be individual when you first come into college because tennis is such an individual sport and you’re not used to being on a team.”
Bajin says that this year, unlike earlier her career, everyone is on the same page as a team.
“We’ve done a lot of team meetings and talking about what our goals are and making sure everyone wants the same thing,” Bajin said. “In the past when I was a freshman and sophomore it was always just kind of like going through the motions and not really knowing what everyone was there for, so I think that’s a big difference this year.”
If Harvard does win the Ivy title, Bergman insists that the Crimson will celebrate with class—something she feels Penn lacked a year ago. She recalls in last year’s defeat at Penn, the locals started blasting Queen’s “We are the Champions” over the speaker system while Harvard was still on the court. Also, Penn was still three Ivy matches away from clinching the league title at the time.
“They were pretty obnoxious and disrespectful to say the least,” Bergman said. “We’re going to be humble and respectful to them if we do in fact win.”
—Staff writer David R. De Remer can be reached at remer@fas.harvard.edu.