Crimson Upsets Ninth-Ranked Clemson

The Harvard men's tennis team had hoped to at least split singles with Clemson, yesterday at the Beren Tennis Center Instead, the netmen dropped four out of six singles matches, only to come back and sweep the doubles and grab a 5-4 upset of the ninth ranked Tigers.

The regular season-ending win capped an unprecedented 16-4 campaign. The Crimson leaves tonight for the NCAA tourney in Athens, Ga., where Harvard will face second ranked Stanford in the first round.

Yesterday's victory came down to the second doubles contest between Harvard's Warren Grossman and Rob Loud and Clemson's Andy Krantz and Miguel Nido. The other two doubles matches were played outdoors, and Harvard took both in two sets. But flakes of quickly melting precipitation were too unfamiliar to the men from the South, so the deciding match moved indoors from the cold to Palmer-Dixon Courts.

By the time the other doubles matches ended, Grossman and Loud had already won the first set, 6-4, and were up 4-3 in the second. Loud was serving well and Grossman was commanding the net, but the Clemson duo also realized the importance of the match and determined to battle their way back in.

It all boiled down to a battle of reflexes at the net, and luckily for the Crimson, Grossman and Loud employed both of theirs outstandingly. When the Clemson pair tied five all in the set, tension increased, as both pairs held serve.

The set went to a tie-breaker. The duos shared points, knotting the score at 3-3. On the deciding point, Krantz hit the ball into the net. Loud looked upward and rejoiced, Grossman hugged him, and the rest of the team ran onto the court and huddled together for some time, then went over to shake hands.

"I give Harvard all the credit for the win," Clemson Coach Chuck Kriese said after-wards. "We didn't really do anything to win the doubles. They were down, and like a wounded animal they came back. "The Tigers have lost only two sets in 30 played in their last 10 matches, and two pairs are ranked nationally Krantz and Nido are ranked 36th while all Harvard's pairs are unranked.

Big One

"This win was really a big one for us, especially with the NCAA's coming up," Harvard Coach Dave Fish said. "We've proved that we can handle the top 10."

Earlier this season the Crimson took on UCLA on its California sweep, split the singles, then lost all the doubles. "We knew our backs were up against the wall," said sixth seed Larry Scott, who with Captain Adam Beren brought the Crimson its singles wins.

"We knew we had nothing to lose." Fish expressed a similar view. "Before, they might have thought somebody else could win and we'd still come out on top. This time they each knew that they needed to win. That gave them a totally undivided purpose."

Howard Sands was upset in the singles by 40th-ranked Rick Rudeen. Sands has dropped from eighth in the nation to a tie for the number 14 spot in two weeks. He said he won't get over the loss for a while, and might have still been thinking about it during the doubles match he and Scott won. "This has happened to me only a few times in my life, and I remember each time," he said. The first seed had been up 5-4 in the second set, but lost the tie breaker, then went down early in the third set to fall 4-6, 7-6, 6-2.

But he, Grossman and Beren all echoed Fish's words. "This win is the culmination of a dream, and we've been waiting four years for this," Sands said.

The NCAA tournament which starts Saturday is made up of 16 teams selected from colleges across the country. Harvard was picked for the northeast region bid after beating Yale, the second ranked team, last month Eight members of Harvard's team will make the southward journey.