Alexei Chijoff-Evans, shown here in earlier action, and the rest of the Harvard men’s tennis team dropped a close match, 4-3, to Binghamton yesterday. The contest came down to the wire with the Bearcats winning the final singles match to earn the victory. Binghamton entered the match with a 6-1 record against the Ivies with its only loss coming to Columbia.
Sometimes, things come better in pairs.
That was certainly the case yesterday afternoon, as Harvard (9-8) was dominant in doubles play, sweeping all three matches against Binghamton (16-1). Yet the Crimson’s dominance in doubles didn’t translate into singles play, as Harvard fell to the Bearcats, 4-3.
“[It was] our first match home after playing well on the road in the Blue-Grey classic,” Crimson coach Dave Fish ’72 said. “It was disappointing not to make a better adjustment.”
To start things off, the combo of junior Alexei Chijoff-Evans and freshman Joshua Tchan easily won, 8-2, at the No. 3 doubles position. Junior Aba Omodele-Lucien and freshman Christo Schultz followed suit, winning 8-4 at the top doubles spot to clinch the doubles point.
“Doubles, I thought we had a lot of energy,” Tchan said. “We went out there without any hesitation. We got the doubles point pretty easily.”
Harvard has only dropped the doubles point in a dual match fives times on the season.
“We have very good doubles players,” Fish said. “They like playing doubles. It’s too bad we can’t get a couple more points for it.”
In the final doubles match, despite being down early, sophomore Alistair Felton and freshman Andy Nguyen rallied to tie the set up at 7-7. The combo went on to win the tiebreak, completing the sweep for Harvard.
To kick off singles play, Tchan cruised to an easy 6-1, 6-1 victory over Alexandre Haggai at the fifth singles slot.
“[Alexandre] was an amazing athlete,” Tchan said. “I’ve had a lot of practice with Alexei lately, so I’ve been working on my attacking game, and I tried implementing that in my match today. It just went in my favor.”
“Josh played lights out,” Fish said.
Omodele-Lucien was the next to finish, falling to Moshe Levy 6-2, 6-4 at the No. 2 singles spot.
“Aba was just a little out of sync,” Fish said. “He had been playing well in the spring trip, then took some time off to get something a little healed.”
“It just wasn’t his day today,” Tchan added.
In a contest between two top players in the Northeast, Chijoff-Evans fell to Sven Vloedgraven, 6-3, 6-3.
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