The latter played a particularly impressive match against Illinois’ Phil Stolt, a senior who had won 11 of his last 12 completed matches and carried a No. 51 national ranking.
“I knew [Stolt],” Chu explained. “I’ve known him forever, and I just wanted to get on top of him early, take that first set, then take the match and run away with it, and hopefully start some momentum…and to let the rest of our teammates know, ‘Hey, we’re all fighting together, and we can be David and slay Goliath.’”
No. 36 David Lingman, the other Crimson co-captain, was next to finish, falling 6-3, 7-6 (2) to the top player in the country, Brian Wilson.
Lingman trailed 5-1 in the second set, but he staved off multiple match points and scrapped his way to 6-6.
Things evened up once again—now 3-3—when Martin Wetzel capped off a runaway 2-6, 6-2, 6-1 victory.
And so it all came down to Nguyen. To a final match. To a third set.
It was, said Chu, “a game of inches.”
“We never gave up,” he said, “and I’m sure we not only surprised ourselves, but we surprised everybody else in attendance with how tenaciously we came back…Not only did we come back and even it up, but we probably made the crowd feel like we were a better team for a couple parts of the match.”
Chiou agreed.
“I think we really let the country know and the tennis community know that Harvard is one of the best teams in the country,” the senior said. “We came very close to beating an undefeated team.”
Illinois coach Craig Tiley was the first to admit it.
“I said yesterday to our team, and I’ve said all along to our team, that Harvard is very capable of beating us,” Tiley explained. “I think we got lucky today.”
The loss marked Harvard’s first in nine matches, and it capped a season which included an Ivy title and a ranking which has fluttered between No. 22 and No. 12 for the past four months.
The squad will lose five seniors—Lingman, Riddell, Chiou, Nguyen, and George Turner—each of whom has been integral to this season’s success.
The Crimson leaves Tulsa disappointed, itching to continue tournament play—but the players will also leave knowing that they came this close to knocking off the top team in the country, to ending a winning streak two years in the making and to having a crack at the Elite Eight, an honor Harvard has had only once before.
“I’m really proud of everybody,” Chu said, “from the practice guys at home to everybody who fought their hearts out today.
“We’re a team when we win, we’re a team when we lose—especially when we lose.”
—Staff writer Rebecca A. Seesel can be reached at seesel@fas.harvard.edu.