Men's Tennis Drops Two Ivy League Decisions

The No. 50 Harvard men’s tennis team (12-10, 0-2 Ivy) traveled to New York this weekend to face Ancient Eight foes No. 55 Cornell (8-10, 1-2) and No. 28 Columbia (13-5, 3-0) to start Ivy League play.

The Crimson was unsuccessful on its road trip to the Empire State. Despite the team’s three game win-streak coming into the match, the Crimson fell short this weekend and suffered two losses.

“Obviously we didn’t have the results that we were looking for this weekend, but I think there was a lot of good tennis played, and a lot of good lessons to be learned,” co-captain Conor Haughey said.

COLUMBIA 4, HARVARD 3

Co-Captain Nicky Hu shined for the Crimson at the Dick Savitt Tennis Center against the Columbia Lions as he helped the Crimson get a 2-0 lead to begin the day. The duo of Hu and junior Brian Yeung won a decisive victory over their opponents, No. 15 doubles partners Columbia juniors No. 64 Shawn Hadavi and Richard Pham, 6-3.

“Nicky came in really big today. He played really well in singles and doubles from what I could see,” freshman Andy Zhou said. “He’s been setting a really good example with his demeanor and competitiveness… that’s just something that the rest of us have to live up to.”

Hu would go on to win his singles match in the top singles spot against Hadavi in straight sets, 6-2 and 6-1.

“We were really fired up about the way that [Hu] competed, and he really went after it. He exemplified what we were trying to do as a team,” Haughey said. “To get on them early and play loose, attack, and stay aggressive.”

Junior Sebastian Beltrame and sophomore Jean Thirouin gave the Crimson a victory in doubles as well, defeating the No. 28 pair of Lions senior Mike Vermeer and sophomore Michal Rolski, 7-5.

Senior Kelvin Lam came back from a first-set deficit, rallying over the next two sets to take a victory over Pham, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2. Despite having the doubles point advantage, the Crimson struggled on the singles side, and Lam and Hu were the only successful Crimson players.

Beltrame’s match at second doubles went into a tiebreaker in the third set, and Harvard stayed in close competition with Columbia throughout the day. The players’ efforts were not enough, however, and the Lions bested the Crimson by one point.

CORNELL 4, HARVARD 1

Harvard made the long trip up to Ithaca for its Saturday contest against Cornell. The Big Red overwhelmed the Crimson as a whole, and sophomore Kenny Tao would come out as the only victor for Harvard with a tough three-set victory against Cornell junior Chris Vrabel, 6-3, 2-6, 6-3.

Cornell defeated the Crimson back in February in the semifinals in the ECAC Indoor Championships, and the Big Red picked up where it left off.

“The Ivy League is very similarall the teams are very good, but very similar. Whichever team that shows up and competes,” Haughey said. “One day it may go our way and one day it may go theirs, and today it happened to go theirs

The Crimson fell to a disadvantage early on with the loss of the doubles point, something the team has been struggling with throughout the season.

In the singles competition, Cornell had many dominating performances. Senior Stefan Vinti came into the match with a team-leading eight singles victories, and again competed well against the Crimson as he defeated Zhou at fourth singles, 6-4, 6-3. Although Beltrame put up a fight against Big Red junior Colin Sinclair, he ultimately fell 7-5, 6-4.

The Crimson hopes to quickly learn from their mistakes in their losses as the Ivy League season continues.

“It definitely stings, it’s unfortunate to come that close, [and] not come out with a victory,” Haughey said. “There was a lot of good things to come out of it. We’ll take that and learn from it, and hopefully take the anger from the loss fuel us as we head into practice and into next weekend.”