W. Tennis Comes Back East With Two Victories

Switching from indoor to outdoor play has become quite familiar for the No. 18 Harvard women’s tennis team, who traveled to California over the break to compete outdoors after spending many afternoons practicing inside the Murr Center.

While the Crimson (9-6) brought home wins against No. 56 Fresno State (8-6) and No. 43 Pepperdine (10-6), the 5-2 loss to No. 4 USC (14-1) may indicate that there is still room for improvement.

“This trip was pretty successful, but we want to start beating the top five teams,” co-captain Courtney Bergman said.

HARVARD 4, PEPPERDINE 3

The Crimson wrapped up the trip in Malibu Saturday with a 4-3 win overshort-handed Pepperdine.

“Overall, everyone did pretty well,” Bergman said.

Harvard took the doubles point with both an 8-5 victory from freshman Celia Durkin and junior Melissa Anderson at the No. 1 position and a win by forfeit, as the Waves’ top two players sat out. The No. 2 pair of sophomore Elsa O’Riain and freshman Stephanie Schnitter lost a close match, 9-8, to Pepperdine’s Merve Asimgil and Sylvia Kosakowski.

Only five singles matches were played, as the No. 6 match was forfeited. Harvard got the necessary two points to clinch the match with wins by sophomore Preethi Mukundan and Durkin. Mukundan shut out Pepperdine’s Vanessa Dunlap 6-0, 6-0 while Durkin fired back with 6-1, 6-1 set victories against Kosakowski after losing the first set, 6-3.

Senior Susanna Lingman played in the No. 1 spot as Bergman rested, but she was unable to take her match to three sets, losing 6-2 and 7-6 (2). senior No. 3 Alexis Martire and junior No. 4 Eva Wang fell in straight sets.

“We were a little weaker in singles this time,” Durkin said. “We can definitely perform a lot better.”

USC 5, HARVARD 2

Energized by its win over Fresno State two days before, the Crimson headed south to Los Angeles on March 30 but faced fierce competition from the Trojans, who took five of six singles matches after losing the doubles point.

“We were feeling really good going into the match, but we got outplayed in singles,” Bergman said.

O’Riain, who had been resting for the past couple of weeks due to a knee injury, returned to the lineup for doubles play. She and Schnitter, playing at No. 3, won their match, 8-3. With the 8-4 victory from No. 1 pair Durkin and Anderson, the Crimson picked up the first point of the match. The No. 2 duo of Bergman and Lingman fell 8-4.

Wang, in the No. 6 singles spot, gave the Crimson its second point, winning both sets by a score of 6-3 against the Trojans’ Taylynn Snyder. Bergman and Lingman had difficult matches against USC’s top two players, Nicole Liembach and Lindsey Nelson, ranked No. 11 and No. 10 in the nation. Liembach defeated Bergman, 6-0, 6-1 while Nelson won by a score of 6-1, 6-0.

Durkin, Anderson, and Martire­—who returned to play after suffering from a back injury—were also unable to keep the red-hot Trojans from dominating the match.

“It came down to some pivotal matches, but we didn’t make them play,” Durkin said.

After winning the first set 7-6, Durkin dropped the next two sets by a score of 6-4 and 1-0 (10-4), and No. 4 Martire and No. 5 Anderson fell after two sets of play, 6-1, 6-2 and 6-3, 6-4, respectively.

“For that given day, they were willing to stay out there longer, and we were missing a lot more than they were,” Bergman said. “They played better outdoor tennis.”

HARVARD 6, FRESNO ST. 1

When the Crimson faced Fresno State last year, the result was a 6-1 defeat, but Harvard returned the favor on March 28, winning by the same score.

“[Fresno State’s] always a very intense team to play,” Bergman said. “We got pretty motivated for that.”

After claiming the doubles point with victories by Durkin and Anderson, who played at the No. 1 spot, and Bergman and Lingman, the team coasted to victory, winning five of six singles matches.

“The team balance came together more on our side than theirs,” Durkin said. “We were a little more prepared.”

Three of those victories featured tight first sets, as Lingman, Durkin, and Martire each opened with 7-5 wins before defeating their opponents 6-0, 6-1 and 6-1, respectively.

Mukundan, playing at No. 6 singles, won her match, 6-2, 6-3, while Bergman, at the No. 1 spot, lost the tiebreaker, 10-3, to the Bulldogs’ Katharina Winterhalter, who took the match by a score of 6-4, 4-6, 1-0.

After flying across the country, the Crimson will be in more familiar territory on April 8 and 9 as it heads to New York for its first Ivy League matches of the season against Cornell and Columbia.