HARVARD 7, PENN 0
Although Penn (9-6, 3-2) was coming off a loss to Princeton, the Crimson was prepared for a tough match against the Quakers, its biggest Ivy rival.
Despite making a few blunders in doubles and playing a couple of three-set matches in singles, Harvard recovered to win each of its matches against Penn Friday.
“There were some tight matches,” Durkin said. “Everyone did a solid job.”
Like Saturday, the No. 2 doubles match was completed in about half an hour, but it was the pair of O’Riain and Bergman who did it this time, winning 8-1.
Penn’s Kate Williams and Caroline Stanislawski were down 5-2 before tying up their match against Harvard’s Lingman and Wang at the No. 3 position. Lingman and Wang managed to pull away from the Quakers and clinch the doubles point with an 8-6 victory.
“We knew Penn would be our toughest opponent,” O’Riain added. “Every match was competitive.”
Anderson and Durkin had a 6-3 lead, but allowed the Quakers’ Shelah Chao and Julia Koulbitskaya to even the score. It took a tiebreak for the Crimson to win the match 9-8 (5), but Durkin had a nasty fall toward the end, injuring her wrist and keeping her out of singles competition.
It was business at usual in the No. 1 singles position, as Bergman defeated Penn’s Yulia Rivelis 6-2, 6-2. At No. 2, Lingman had a routine first set victory at 6-2, but only won her match against Koulbitskaya after a 7-6 tiebreak victory in the second set.
Mukundan won the Crimson’s third singles match of the day by defeating Kate Williams 6-3, 6-2. While Anderson at the No. 4 position was down 3-0 in the first set, she bounced back and finished the match with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Caroline Stanislawski.
Both Martire at No. 3 and Schnitter at No. 6 fell in the first set, but Martire fought back in the second and third sets to triumph, 2-6, 6-3, 7-5. Since Harvard had clinched the match by the time Schnitter won her second set, a super tiebreak was played and she won that to beat Sarah Schiffman 3-6, 6-3, 1-0 (4).
The Crimson returns to action tomorrow when it faces Boston College at the Beren Tennis Center.
“We’re definitely looking forward to playing them this year,” Mukundan said. “They’re a pretty strong team.”
Harvard hopes to avenge the 5-2 loss it faced at BC last year and extend its winning streak to six games.