But Fish was quick to answer that “that’s the kind of stuff we train for.

“We just said, ‘Hey, we love it that so many people care about this contest that we’re in.’ So in a way, every cheer against us is a cheer for us.”

The screaming, though slightly tempered with the Crimson’s doubles point victory, continued during the singles competition.

The top three matches went first, and Riddell suffered a 7-6, 7-5 loss which knotted the dual match score at 1-1.

But Lingman put the Crimson up again with a 2-6, 6-4, 6-3 win over Brown’s Jamie Cerretani.

“[The fans] would be loud on his serve so I couldn’t really hear [it],” Lingman said. “[It’s] kind of nice on returning to be able to hear his serve, so that made it a little more difficult.”

Chu followed suit with a 6-7 (4), 6-3, 6-2 victory over Nick Goldberg.

The Crimson now held a 3-1 advantage, but Chiou suffered a 7-5, 6-4 loss which cut the Crimson lead to 3-2 and allowed the Bears a bit of hope.

Not for long, though.

Playing with the resolve and savvy of a veteran co-captain, Nguyen clinched the dual match with a 6-3, 6-4 victory—nearly six hours after play had begun.

Junior Martin Wetzel was the last off the courts, securing a 6-7, 6-2, 6-4 victory shortly thereafter, and Harvard all but locked up its second straight Ivy title—this after losing in 2002 at Providence to give the Bears the league championship.

And the Brown fans remained boisterous till the bitter end.

“[When] people go to hockey games and they don’t know tennis,” Fish explained, “they’re going to act the same way at a tennis match. In most people’s minds, that’s just good school spirit.

“In a hockey game, you call the goalie a sieve and worse,” he added with a laugh, “and we haven’t seen that level of intensity [at the Harvard courts], really, but is it surprising that that’s the way people would cheer these days? No, it’s not. You have to put your long pants on and be ready.”

The Crimson players did restrain—for the most part—any reaction to the Brown taunting, preferring instead to celebrate good points with screams, fist pumps and recognition of the outnumbered-but-loyal Crimson crowd in attendance.