With Gemmell feeling under the weather and Cortez currently injured, the top six of Harvard stepped up and overcame tough losses in the bottom three.

“We were resting our No. 1 player, so everyone moved up one,” Guruge said. “But people have off days, so as long as we won overall, I think it is fine.”

A few individual matches went to four games, but the Crimson was able to make adjustments throughout the afternoon, shaking off opening day nerves and rust.

“I think some of us were just working out some kinks,” Mumanachit said. “But everyone made adjustments and improved later on in the match, and it shows a lot of promising things for the future.”

Another freshman, Julie Chu, playing at No. 5, won three straight games after losing her first, 11-8.

Mendez also played well, capturing an 11-0 win in the second game as she shut out her opponent, 3-0.

“A couple of them were pretty nervous,” Mumanachit said. “But I think just getting into it and seeing how good they are and seeing how their hard work has paid off calmed their nerves a bit later on.”

Harvard has been looking to improve upon its fitness early this season, drawing upon a new system from the team’s new coaches.

Winning two matches in a row demonstrated the squad’s improvement in this area.

“We’re focusing on building our fitness level this semester,” Guruge said, “so that we can taper off next semester when we have to play the really hard matches and play nationals and fight for the Ivy League championship.”

These hard matches will take place later on in the season, but the Crimson still took care of business during the Harvard-Yale weekend.

“Playing Williams and Stanford is not that tough for us, but that didn’t mean we took it easy; we still gave it our best and were prepared to play them,” Guruge said.