SPORTS BLOG: Extra Strokes

Ashwin Kumar is flowing.

With a big serve and soft volleys, the junior has turned a mid-winter cold spell into a spring thaw that has swept away nine of his last 11 singles opponents and eight of his last 11 doubles foes.

Kumar’s flashy, seemingly effortless game, so frustratingly absent in the first three dual matches of the spring season, has returned with a vengeance, most recently this weekend, when he won all four matches he played with dazzling finesse.

“Ashwin’s been able to stay away from what I call his ‘dark side’ recently,” sophomore Chris Clayton said, referring to the sulky, self-critical Kumar who sometimes surfaced in the first matches of this season. “And that’s where the team needs him to be. I joke with him, ‘no dark side, man, no dark side.’”

The best example of his resurgence came last Friday, in a match against Cornell’s Josh Raff. The Big Red senior gave Kumar fits in a three set victory last year, but playing at No. 2 this season, Kumar opened the match flustered.

He was missing easy groundstrokes and volleys that traditionally come easy. At a juncture where he might have allowed frustration to set in—down 5-3, 40-0 in the first set—Kumar refocused, denying his opponent three set-points and eventually winning the set in a tiebreaker.

“That was a huge mental victory for me,” Kumar said, “and it will go a long way during the Ivy season.”

His focus regained, Kumar demolished Raff in the second set, putting a bagel on the board and giving the Crimson the momentum it needed to take secure a 7-0 victory.

Kumar’s game relies on a combination of powerful serves and artfully placed groundstrokes and volleys to keep his opponents uncomfortable.

“If my game’s working, I can play a whole match and my opponent will never get the same shot twice,” Kumar said.

His game was as advertised on Saturday against Columbia’s Jared Drucker, who had also beaten Kumar in the past. In winning the first set 6-1, Kumar demonstrated the full range of his game, turning seeming passing shots into drop-vollies at extreme angles, pounding goundstrokes to the deepest reaches and farthest corners of the court and capping the whole performance with two aces on his last three serves. He lapsed only briefly in the second set, getting broken once at the end of the set to lose 4-6.

Again, Kumar avoided his dark side, playing with extra intensity to carry the match with a 6-3 third set victory that he held even through a number of questionable calls.

Kumar’s doubles play has been just as stellar as his singles. Teaming most recently with sophomore Sasha Ermakov at No. 1, the tandem has provided heavy ammunition on both serves and returns, allowing the Harvard duo to spend most of its time comfortably at the net.

“My game style’s pretty risky,” Kumar said, “so I need to be precise to be effective.”

If his current play is any indication, Kumar makes those risks pay off.

—Staff writer Jonathan B. Steinman can be reached at steinman@fas.harvard.edu.