“Bernardo loves that pace,” Broadbent said. “But the faster you play, the better Sid plays.”

“Both of us, whenever we lost a game, we came out more fired up for the next one,” Suchde said. “In the fifth, it was a matter of who could hold their nerve.”

That turned out to be Samper, who took the rubber game 9-4, saving several points with shots off the back wall.

Junior intercollegiate No. 22 Asher Hochberg came up with the other win for the Crimson (3-1, 3-0 Ivy), defeating No. 23 Pat Malloy—the only American in the Bantam lineup—in five games at No. 7 in what may prove to be a breakout victory.

“He carried our team for those five games in a way that he hasn’t ever done, but he has been poising himself to do,” Whitman said.

“That was a big, big stepping stone for him,” Bajwa said. “That was a landmark.”

Hochberg focused on its importance from a team perspective.

“If it can do anything, it can just show that we had a legitimate chance of beating them,” he said. “It’s kind of nice to know that we won one at the top and one at the bottom to show that we’re even at both ends.”

At No. 4, co-captain and intercollegiate No. 8 James Bullock fell in three games to intercollegiate No. 11 Yvain Badan, but Bullock led in the first two games, which each witnessed 8-8 ties.

Other matches were not as close.

Junior intercollegiate No. 10 Michael Blumberg lost 9-0, 9-2, 9-6 to No. 13 Nadeem Osman at No. 5.

“It took a while for me to really get into the match,” Blumberg said. “I really started getting going and started feeling a lot more comfortable in the third game, but I let him get ahead of me right away at the start.”

“I might have let the atmosphere get to me a little more than I usually do,” he added.

“That was a definite let-down,” Bajwa said. “I really don’t think Mike will play a match like that again.”

Freshman Ilan Oren lost 9-0, 9-0, 9-3 to No. 12 Regardt Schonborn at No. 3.