Netmen Nail Big Green, 6-3, Sending League Mark to 4-0

The details of each match change, but the results keep coming up 6-3 for Harvard. The Crimson tennis team vanquished Dartmouth by just that margin under a gray Soldiers Field sky yesterday, to notch its fourth straight 6-3 Eastern League victory--against no losses--and continue its march toward the league crown.

Except for three third-set tiebreaker losses--two of them on the final points at first and second singles--the racquetmen would have registered a whitewash over the Big Green, which had entered the contest 6-1.

Add to that the fact that the Crimson played without the services of number one-player and captain Todd Lundy, who sat out with sore ribs, and the victory seems all the more impressive. Only two serious hurdles, the Yale and Princeton matches--albeit, a couple serous hurdles--now stand between Harvard and the league crown.

"We're progressing, and I'm getting some nice feelings about this team," coach Dave Fish said after the match. "Now, if only we keep progressing."

Speaking of progress, the netmen blazed through four of the singles matches like a prairie fire. The Crimson won the first sets of all six singles matches with case, and just an hour after the start of play, four Harvard players had walked off the court with straight set victories.

Four Quick Ones

Freshman Bob Horne polished off Fred Siekert with a couple of 6-3 sets at number six, and cagey Scott Walker played one of his best matches to date when he destroyed Mark Schneider, 1-and-2.

Four-man Kevin Shaw racked up his sixth straight victory when he cruised past Doug Walbridge 4-and-3, while Greg Kirsch resorted to a 5-3 tiebreaker win to administer the coup de grace to Mark Jeffrey at five.

The Crimson needed but one more victory in the singles to ice the match, as all eyes turned to the first court--where freshman Don Pompan, subbing for Lundy, had taken on All-Ivy sophomore John Steel--and the second court--where Andy Chaikovsky was duking it out with Big Green captain Pater Maglathlin.

Forces Breaker

Chaikovsky, moving up two spots in the lineup due to a challenge match win, played brilliantly in the first set to win 6-3 before slipping to a 6-3 second-set loss. "Chaik" then got his game together in the third, breaking Maglathlin's service at 6-5 to force a tiebreaker.

Maglathlin sent the match to one final point by fighting off a match point with the tiebreaker score at 3-4. On the decisive rally, Chaikovsky returned two backhands, then decided to go for a forehand winner to his right. The gamble failed when the stroke fell no more than two inches outside the white line.

As Chaikovsky's offering fell wide, Pompan seemed on the verge of capping a brilliant performance. Playing with a bold, penetrating style, the frosh split sets with the talented Steel, then led 4-2 in the third-set tiebreaker and had three serves left to close out the match.

Steel sent it to four-all with two excellent shots, then stole the match with an incredible crosscourt backhand winner from behind the baseline.

INDIVIDUAL RESULTS

6 singles--B. Horne(H) def. F. Siekert, 6-3, 6-3

3 singles-S. Walker (H) def. M. Schneider, 6-1, 6-2

4 singles--K. Shaw (H) def. D. Walbridge, 6-4, 6-3

5 singles--G. Hirsch (H) def. M. Jeffrey, 6-2, 7-6 (5-3 tiebreaker)

2 singles--F. Maglathlin (D) def. A. Chaikovsky, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (5-4 TB)

1 singles--J. steel (D) def. D. Pompan, 2-6, 6-4, -6 (5-4 TB)

2 doubles--Pompan and Kirsch (H) def. Maglathlin and Siekert, 6-2, 6-1

1 doubles--Shaw and Walker (H) def. Steel and G. Hartman, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3

3 doubles--Schneider and Jeffrey (D) def. Chaikovsky and Horne, 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (5-3 TB)