“Michelle is a textbook player, and she doesn’t make mistakes,” Duboc said.

With three of the five Crimson players knocked out of the tournament after the round of 16, Grigg and Blumberg played each other in the quarterfinals, ensuring that Harvard would send a player into the semifinals.

After defeating Blumberg in three games, Grigg played a five-set match in the semifinals against third-seeded Vaidehi Reddy, of Trinity, and defeated her, 9-4, 9-2, 6-9, 4-9, 9-7. The length of the semifinal match might well have caused her to run out of gas in the final against Quibell.

“[The final] was a great, great match,” Duboc said. “Quibell broke Kyla down. She couldn’t keep up with the pace and got frustrated with herself after she made a lot of errors. Quibell is a steady and focused player who is hard to crack. You have to work hard for every single point…There is no freebie with that girl.”

Grigg had beaten Quibell earlier in the season, but this time was different.

“She had to play her after a long string of matches,” Duboc said. “It was a matter of fitness.”

“Yale is a great team,” Balsekar said. “They just had a lot more depth [than we did].”