ATHLETE OF THE WEEK: Courtney Bergman

On paper, Harvard should not have advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16. Sophomore Courtney Bergman should not have beaten Arizona’s Emile Scribot.

But today’s Bergman is not the same as the one who tumbled to the No. 46 ranking this spring.

Scribot was ranked No. 5 in the nation and was a Pac-10 singles semifinalist. She had beaten the No. 1 players from Stanford, Southern California, Washington, and California during the dual season. Bergman was an unknown commodity in comparison.

But with a team trip to Gainesville on the line, Bergman made a name for herself. She took the first set 6-3, fell in the second set 6-3, and with all the eyes of Beren Tennis Center on her, she took a 6-3 third set victory.

“I knew Courtney could do it,” said Harvard coach Gordon Graham. “She was picking it up a notch towards the end of the season.”

Saturday was the second Harvard team event this season where the result came down to Bergman’s match. Earlier this year against North Carolina, Bergman failed to serve out the match and ultimately lost. She would not let that happen again.

“It was very stressful and I’m very glad I came out on top [this time],” Bergman said.

Bergman considered the first two sets to be good tennis, but in the third set, both players were feeling the pressure.

“I could barely swing through a ball and she went the opposite way and was missing everything,” Bergman said. “It wasn’t the highest quality tennis but there was so much on the line.”

She credited assistant coach Stephanie Nickitas for calming her in between points.

“There’s really no strategy that can be told in the third set, because it’s just nerves,” Bergman said.

Scribot was leading 40-15 with the match tied at 3-3, and then she crumbled while Bergman stood tall. One Scribot shot after another went into the net.

“The girl was trying to put pressure on Courtney and I thought it was working pretty well, but then she just outright missed balls,” Graham said. “You got to give Courtney credit because she got a lot of balls in play and gave her opportunities to miss.”

In the final game, Scribot went out with a whimper, dropping every point to Bergman. There was no huge celebration at the end. There wasn’t much energy left to spread around.

It was Bergman’s biggest individual victory of her career, though it was overshadowed by the team result.

“I didn’t even think about her being No. 5,” Bergman said. “I just wanted to win my match so we could go to Gainesville.”

After struggling through most of this season, nothing has kept Bergman down. Three weeks ago, she beat No. 23 Alice Pirsu. Saturday’s victory at No. 5 was another giant leap.

Next up is the nation’s No. 4 player Amber Liu, yet another opponent that, on paper, Bergman is not supposed to beat.

But that’s why they play the games.