For Harvard, things got worse before they got better. Nguyen dropped his first match of the season to Memphis’ Connor Glennon, 6-3, 6-4, and an injury to freshman Brian Yeung put the Crimson in a 3-0 hole.

But Harvard would turn it around, picking up wins from freshman Andrew Ball, Steinroeder, and Beltrame at the third position to knot the match at 3-3.

It all came down to Shaun Chaudhuri at No. 2, but the junior fell in three sets, 6-4, 4-6, 6-0, to secure a 4-3 victory for the Tigers.

HARVARD 4, NORTHWESTERN 3

On Friday afternoon, the Crimson outlasted the Wildcats in a thriller, beating them for the second consecutive year by a score of 4-3.

In doubles, Nguyen and MacMaster were upset by Northwestern’s Raleigh Smith and Mihir Kumar, while Steinroeder and Lam came up short at No. 3 to hand the Wildcats the 1-0 advantage.

Northwestern’s Sam Shropshire took down Chaudhuri, 6-1, 6-3, to put Harvard in a 2-0 rut, but Ball stopped the bleeding with a 6-4, 6-2 win.

From there, Nguyen notched a straight-set win at No. 1 to tie up the match. Beltrame dropped a three-setter on the third court, but Steinroeder rebounded with a 6-1, 5-7, 6-3 win to knot up the match at three points apiece.

The decisive match would be Yeung’s, who found himself in a third-set tiebreak after losing the first set, 3-6, but capturing the second, 6-1. Yeung eventually prevailed in the tiebreak to earn the 4-3 win for the Crimson.

“Anyone who can win the Ivy League this year will have to rise to the challenge,” Fish said. “All of the other teams can rise to it on any given days. There are no free lunches in this league.”

—Staff writer Justin C. Wong can be reached at justin.wong@thecrimson.com.