Weekend in Texas Produces No Wins

On the road for a doubleheader this weekend in Texas, the four-time defending Ivy League champion Harvard women’s tennis team dropped two matches to fall to 0-4 to open its season.

On an unseasonably cold Saturday, the No. 44 Crimson (0-4) faced No. 40 SMU (4-1) indoors before moving outside to take on No. 10 Baylor (3-4) the next day.

BAYLOR 7, HARVARD 0

The Lady Bears proved too much for an inexperienced Harvard squad to handle Sunday, winning all six singles matches and two of three doubles matches.

“[Baylor] was a considerably better team,” head coach Gordon Graham said. “To some of our players, it maybe didn’t seem that the other team was dominant because they didn’t come out ripping winners, but as a team they made barely any mistakes and got a lot of balls back.”

While Baylor won the match relatively easily, the Crimson walked away with some positives. At this point in the season, Harvard—with two freshman and four other players new to the team—sees itself in a race to gain experience before the start of Ivy League play. The match against the Bears was yet another step towards obtaining that seasoning.

Despite each of the Crimson’s three doubles teams having at least one player new to the team, all three led at some point in the matches against Baylor. The top team of sophomore Beier Ko and freshman Lena Litvak defeated Baylor’s improbably named pairing of Zuzana Cerna and Zuzana Chmelarova, 8-6.

Gordon also noted the singles performance of No. 80 Litvak, who lost a tight three-setter, 4-6, 6-1, 10-6, to Cerna.

“I think she showed she can play at that level, which is an All-American level,” Gordon said. “Once she gets past her injury issues, she should be competitive at that level.”

SMU 4, HARVARD 3

After a delay of a four and a half hours while Saturday’s match against SMU was relocated indoors due to uncooperative weather, Harvard eventually fell, 4-3, to SMU in a marathon match.

With the score tied at 3-3, only freshman Lizzie Brook—playing her first team singles match for the Crimson—remained on the court against Mustang opponent Georgiana Marta. Brook won the first set 6-3, then led 3-0 in the second before Marta rallied to leave the second set score 5-3 in Brook’s favor. With Brook leading 30-15 in that game—literally two points from both an individual and team victory—Marta elevated her game to win the second set, 7-5, before winning the third set, 6-3, to seal the victory for SMU.

“Lizzie did a fantastic job of fighting really hard and the other girl just started battling back,” senior captain Preethi Mukundan said.

Before the finale of Brook’s match, sophomore No. 16 Beier Ko had won handily, 7-5, 6-1, over opponent Natalia Bubien. Litvak defeated Jennifer Chay in straight sets and Harvard earned the doubles point with wins by the Ko and Litvak combination and the Mukundan and Brook pairing.

With matches next weekend against Virginia and Vanderbilt, Mukundan feels the time is ripe for the Crimson to score its first win of the season.

“We’ll have home-court advantage, we’ll be playing indoors, and our girls are getting better with every match,” she said.

—Staff writer Tyler D. Sipprelle can be reached at sipprell@fas.harvard.edu.