Crimson Downs Clemson at Home

Battling injuries, the flu and a tough Clemson squad, the No. 14 Harvard women’s tennis team pulled through Saturday with a 4-3 victory at the Murr Center. The win was the Crimson’s fifth by a 4-3 margin and seventh overall this season.

“Clemson was definitely a team we looked forward to playing,” senior Eva Wang said. “We had a tough time last year [at Clemson] and it’s good to beat them because they were a stitch in our side.”

Harvard (7-3) won the first point of the match in doubles with two 8-3 wins from its No. 1 and No. 3 pairs, which proved critical for the Crimson later in the match.

“If we didn’t win the doubles point we would have lost the match, so that was huge,” junior Elsa O’Riain said.

At the top spot, O’Riain and senior Melissa Anderson started off strong as they led, 4-0, against the Tigers’ Carol Salge and Federica Val Adrichem. Clemson’s duo was able to cut the lead to 4-3 before O’Riain and Anderson finished them off with four straight game victories.

At the third position, junior Preethi Mukundan and freshman Laura Peterzan almost saw an early lead disappear but recovered to secure the doubles point with the 8-3 win.

“We went up 4-1, had a little lapse to 4-3, but then pulled forward to 8-3,” Mukundan said.

Wang and sophomore Stephanie Schnitter at No. 2 doubles struggled against the Tigers’ Daniela Alvarez and Alexandra Luc and fell, 8-3.

The singles points alternated between Harvard and Clemson as the squads were tied, 2-2, before O’Riain and Anderson took care of their individual matches to give the team its second consecutive win at home.

“We were all very focused on winning our respective matches and were all pumped as a team,” Mukundan said.

Schnitter cruised to a 6-1, 6-0 victory over Clemson’s Marie Scriba at No. 6 singles while Peterzan had a more difficult time against Salge in the No. 3 spot and fell, 6-4, 6-4.

Despite being sick with the flu, Wang battled hard against the Tigers’ Alvarez in the No. 1 position and nearly pulled out the second set.

Alvarez, however, secured the tiebreak and won the match by advantages of 6-1 and 7-5.

On the second court was O’Riain, who after three sets brought Harvard one point closer to victory in a 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 decision. Anderson, in the No. 4 spot, bounced back after losing the first set to clinch the match for the Crimson with a 5-7, 6-0, 6-2 win over Clemson’s Maru Brito.

Down 4-2, the Tigers managed to earn the last point as Luc took the three-set match against Mukundan by a score of 6-3, 6-7, 6-3.

“[The win] shows how tough we are in critical situations,” Wang said. “We have so many 4-3 matches under our belt and [that’s] more assurance that we’ll go out and be solid.”

Harvard will hope to extend its winning streak to three matches on March 12 when it faces No. 75 Tulsa at the Murr Center.

While there are many teams who stand between the Crimson and the Golden Hurricanes in the national rankings, Harvard maintained that it won’t be taking anything for granted in two weeks.

“Every team is going to want to come out and beat us, so as long as we’re able to keep that focus and determination to take each match one at a time we’ll be fine,” Mukundan said.

—Staff writer Barbara R. Barreno can be reached at barreno@fas.harvard.edu.