The No. 15 Harvard men’s tennis team split the final two matches of its annual trip to California, defeating UC Santa Barbara 5-2 but falling to No. 27 Pepperdine 4-3.

The Crimson (10-6) ended its spring break excursion in disappointing 1-3 fashion, and with Ivy League play just around the corner, all hopes are for the return of the Harvard squad which won eight straight matches earlier this season—not the team which has lost four of the last five.

“Is it a concern?” asked Harvard coach Dave Fish ’71. “Well, it’s disappointing to guys, but the teams that we’ve played out here are very good, they’re very accomplished at what they do, and I think that our [top-15] ranking at that point in the season [when] we got it was probably somewhat inflated.”

This is not to say that the Crimson played poorly against Santa Barbara and Pepperdine.

“In terms of the quality...of play and our energy this break,” said junior Jonathan Chu, “it was pretty high and it was very good [respectively].”

But it wasn’t quite enough, as the squad ended its trip with just a single win.

PEPPERDINE 4, HARVARD 3

Following his team’s loss to the Pepperdine Waves (13-7, 2-0 West Coast), Fish was quick to point out that the rankings can often be misleading.

While Pepperdine has broken the top 20 only once this season, the Waves did push No. 4 USC to a deciding seventh match before falling 4-3 only recently.

“That’s how good they are,” he said of the Waves. “So we’ve been really close.”

The Crimson dropped the doubles point despite the continued dominance of senior Chris Chiou and co-captain Cliff Nguyen, who took the third match 8-5 and remained a flawless 7-for-7.

But Harvard’s first doubles team of junior Jonathan Chu and co-captain David Lingman, ranked No. 37 in the nation, lost 8-6—the duo’s third straight loss of that slim margin.

“When we’re not threatening at first doubles much, that hurts us,” Fish admitted, “because I think we can do better than that.”

Earlier in the season, Fish had said that the pair might be “serious contenders as All-Americans.” Since then, though, Lingman and Chu have won just one match and lost seven.

Senior Mark Riddell and sophomore Brandon Chiu lost the second doubles match 8-4 to a pair which regularly plays in Pepperdine’s top spot and carried a ranking of No. 18.

Harvard’s success now depended on the singles competition, but the squad came up just shy of victory.

Chu took his match in straight sets 7-5, 6-4, and Riddell won 4-6, 6-4, 6-3.

In addition, Nguyen showed tremendous heart as he battled through a back strain which had sidelined him the day before—and which still hurt.

Lingman lost 6-3, 6-4, though, and while freshman Jack Li managed to push his match to a third set, he ultimately fell 7-6, 3-6, 6-4.

“Jack played the best tennis he’s played this year,” Fish said after the loss. “He got in a position to win.”

In the end, it was Chiou’s heartbreaking 7-5, 2-6, 7-6 loss to Alexis Rafidison which sealed a Waves win.

“They played really high-quality tennis,” Nguyen said. “[Rafidison] played unbelievably.

“Chris played really well,” he added. “Chris didn’t lose it—it was like the other guy just won it.”

Indeed, Chiou had held a 5-2 advantage in the third set.

But, said Fish, “the guy he played was a real—and I’m using this in a complimentary term—the guy was a real pro. He really, really played well under pressure.”

HARVARD 5, UC SANTA BARBARA 2

This, the only match the Crimson won in the California sunshine, was perhaps the weakest of the four the team played over spring break.

“We won that one,” Nguyen admitted, “but our energy wasn’t that great. We just seemed a little sluggish that day.

“We were just a better team, though.”

After all, you take what you can get.

“Santa Barbara was probably our worst team match,” Chu agreed, “but we still beat them.”

Indeed, the squad began by corralling the doubles point from the Gauchos (9-6, 4-0 Big West), compliments of Nguyen and Chiou, 9-7, and Riddell and Chiu, 8-6.

Nguyen’s back injury forced him to sit out the singles play, though, and so Chiou took over his fourth spot, losing 6-4, 6-3.

Riddell also fell 7-6, 6-1.

Chiou’s move meant that freshman Gideon Valkin, in just his second dual match, now manned the sixth spot. Valkin won 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.

Harvard had already clinched victory, though. Lingman won 6-2, 3-6, 6-3, Chu 6-2, 6-4, and Li 6-4, 6-1.

And despite the team’s self-described “sluggish play,” the Crimson staved off a West Coast sweep.

Next on the docket for Harvard is the Ivy League season, as the squad will spend the rest of April battling its Ivy foes—the highest of which, Brown, only just cracked the Top 40.

If the Crimson looks to compete effectively in the NCAA tournament, its own division is the place to begin.

But will the team recover from its disappointing spring break?

“I don’t think we’re worried,” Nguyen said. “We learned a lot of good lessons over the spring break.

“These teams are way better than the Ivy teams” he added of the break’s competition, “so we’ll just work on our game.”