Its tight-fisted grip on the Ivy League championship reduced to a finger-tip pinch, the Harvard men’s tennis team will face trying times this weekend.

With its first home loss in the Ivies since 2005 and its Ancient Eight destiny out of its hands, the Crimson (9-8, 1-1 Ivy) will try to reclaim the initiative on the road with this weekend’s double-header against Princeton (9-8, 1-2 Ivy) and Penn (9-9, 0-3 Ivy).

Following last weekend’s narrow defeat at the hands of Ivy League leaders and No. 57 Columbia, Harvard has zero margin for error as it looks to retain its highly-sought crown.

“These [teams] are traditionally really strong rivals,” said Crimson coach David Fish ’72. “For many years, we’ve faced off against Princeton for the league title, and other years we’ve faced Penn for the league title. They both have a very proud tradition of tennis.”

With two singles wins in two Ivy League dual matches, Harvard’s lineup leaders—senior co-captain Chris Clayton and sophomore Alexei Chijoff-Evans—will look to continue their impressive form at No. 1 and No. 2, respectively.

The co-captain, leading the team with an overall 16-9 record and No. 77 ranking in the nation, believes that hard work holds the key to the Crimson sustaining a competitive Ivy League defense.

“We’ve been training pretty hard for this weekend,” Clayton said. “We’ve ran more this week than we did last week. I really think we’ve upped the intensity.”

The Tigers enter the weekend’s action reeling from close losses against No. 60 Yale and Brown, with its solitary win in the Ivies coming in its season opener against Penn.

However, Harvard knows it will need maximum concentration to win Friday’s clash. The Princeton team has climbed as high as No. 73 nationally this season and boasts the abilities of the 2008 Ivy League Player of the Year, senior Peter Capkovic.

“[Capkovic] and [Clayton] have had battles, between a couple of the top players in the region, getting to the semi-finals of the regional championships,” Fish said. “It’s going to be tough.”

Saturday’s match with Penn is equally far from straightforward. While the Quakers hold the unwelcomed label of Ivy League cellar-dwellers, it has also gone a perfect 6-0 in home matches this season, with two players—Phil Law and Jason Lin—recording 20 wins in singles play.

Complicating matters, the Crimson faces an opponent desperate to avenge a Harvard loss from earlier in the season.

In February’s ECAC Men’s Indoor Tennis Championship semi-finals, the Crimson prevailed over Penn in an extraordinary 4-3 victory—the deciding point settled by a thrilling third set tiebreaker at No. 1. Despite dropping the first set, Chijoff-Evans came from behind to beat Penn’s Hicam Laalej and secure a breathtaking 3-6, 7-6, 7-6 (9-7) win.

“We saved match points against Penn in the ECAC Championships,” Fish said. “They’ve got the same lineup that they had then, so we’ve got a big battle there too.”

In last season’s corresponding matchups, Harvard dismantled its opponents, dropping only one point over both fixtures. With so ruthless a display in two closely-fought games against Columbia and Cornell—the margin of victory a single point in both—the Crimson team of 2009 will aim for history to repeat itself.

If only college tennis was that simple.

“[Princeton and Penn] lost their opening matches, but when we come out, we always seem to have a target on our back,” Fish said. “So we always seem to make people play their best against us, and we try to see that as a sign of respect.”

—Staff writer Allen J. Padua can be reached at ajpadua@fas.harvard.edu.