The No. 43 Harvard men’s tennis team took a step in the right direction this weekend, sweeping its Penn-Princeton road trip and avoiding the difficulties that had plagued the squad in weeks past.

“I was really, really pleased with the effort of our guys this weekend,” said coach Dave Fish ’72 of his squad’s 6-1 and 4-3 defeats of the Tigers and Quakers, respectively. “Losing is a habit and winning is a habit, and each one is a little contagious.”

The victories were due, in large part, to the success of the Crimson’s doubles play. Though frequently jumbled in recent months, the pairings finally clicked this weekend, amassing five victories in six contests.

HARVARD 6, PRINCETON 1

With the first and third doubles matches complete—a split between the Crimson and the Tigers (13-7, 2-3)—the fate of the doubles point rested squarely on the shoulders of the players occupying Princeton’s middle court Saturday in New Jersey.

For the Tigers’ fans, this was a good thing—but for the Harvard fans, not so much, as Crimson junior Brandon Chiu and freshman Ashwin Kumar trailed 7-4, one game from elimination.

“Princeton’s doubles has been very impressive,” Fish said. “They’ve been pretty explosive.”

Chiu and Kumar would push their match to a tiebreak, though, and win it.

“Most of the time, [that kind of comeback] doesn’t happen,” Chiu said. “But sometimes, you make enough shots—and you put the other guys under enough pressure—that they start missing some shots, and you [keep] making them.”

With the doubles point in hand, Harvard would take five of six singles matches, all in straight sets, for a 6-1 victory and a weekend Ivy sweep.

“The singles [were] very straightforward,” Fish said

And it was, after last weekend’s disappointing split—the loss to Columbia was the Crimson’s first league defeat since April 21, 2002—a welcome showing.

“It started to feel, [Saturday], like they were starting to believe again,” Fish said, “and there’s a lot of energy to that.”

HARVARD 4, PENN 3

After dropping five doubles points in as many dual matches, the Crimson finally managed to take one of its own in Pennsylvania Friday, downing the Quakers (14-6, 2-3) on all three courts and earning the early 1-0 match advantage.