No. 35 W. Tennis Secures Ivy Title

Mercy? The No. 35 Harvard women’s tennis team lost it while driving somewhere along I-93.

With an NCAA tournament berth and a share of the Ivy title already secured thanks to a win over Yale last Sunday, the Crimson emphatically closed out its league schedule with a 7-0 rout of Dartmouth yesterday afternoon in Hanover, N.H.

Though the sound thrashing of the Big Green (13-8, 2-5 Ivy) ostensibly accomplished nothing more than to deprive the Bulldogs of a share of the conference championship, the victory might be just enough to push Harvard’s national ranking into the top 32, a pre-requisite for submitting a bid to serve as a first round postseason host.

Of course, the Crimson hasn’t lost on its home courts in Allston in more than two years, highlighted by an upset win over No. 16 Arizona in the second round of last year’s tournament. So a hiccough against relative weakling Dartmouth, given the match’s significance, was out of the question.

“It was expected that we’d beat them,” sophomore Eva Wang said, “regardless of the Ivy standings.”

The Big Green (13-8, 2-5)—long eliminated from contention for an at-large postseason bid—replaced a pair of its regular performers with two seniors, Kelsey Surbaugh and Janis Hui, competing in their final collegiate contests, further reducing its initial chances for success.

“It’s hard when you play teams like this because they go into the match with nothing to lose and play without any pressure,” Wang said. “You can’t walk into a match already thinking you are going to win.”

Harvard fielded a weakened lineup as well—junior Alexis Martire was sidelined by a sprained wrist and a freshly-removed cyst—but the Crimson dispensed with its hosts in short order, sweeping the doubles pairings before taking all six singles matches in straight sets.

Wang and sophomore Melissa Anderson set the tempo for play early on at No. 2 doubles, crushing Sarah McNally and Kerry Snow, 8-0, in just 35 minutes.

It was their second shutout in four days despite playing with different partners for much of the season.

“We played all last year,” Wang said. “My coach also noticed that even though we hadn’t practiced before those two matches, we basically look like a normal doubles team.”

The pair narrowly bested freshmen teammates Preethi Mukundan and Cindy Chu for the quickest win of the day. Mukundan and Chu dispatched with their opponents, Hui and Catherine Crandall, in 38 minutes at No. 3, 8-1. Junior co-captains Courtney Bergman and Susanna Lingman took their sweet time, taking the No. 1 match in 40 minutes, 8-3.

“It definitely felt like everything was flying by and everything was going our way,” Mukundan said. “We were just very pumped up and ready to keep things going.”

And Dartmouth just wasn’t ready to stop them.

No. 39 Bergman flirted with perfection against Jayme Ahmed at No. 1, sweeping the first set before surrendering a single game in the second for a 6-0, 6-1 victory.

Though hers would be the most dominant, Bergman’s victory was by no means atypical for the Crimson on the afternoon. In each of its six straight-set wins, Harvard allowed the Big Green to take no more than four games per set, or in four cases, the entire match.

Wang handled Lindsay Winingham, 6-1, 6-1, before Mukundan locked up the fourth point against McNally, 6-1, 6-2, securing sole possession of the Ivy championship.

“I was,” Mukundan said, “definitely dominating the match today.”

Now, however, all Harvard has left to do is to wait. The NCAA Selection Show will be broadcast on Wednesday, May 5, and carried live on ESPN News.

—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.