April and the Ivy League Tennis Season
The Harvard Men's Tennis Team is in "a New York state of mind," with important dual matches at home with the Cornell Big Red on Friday at 2pm and Columbia on Saturday 2pm. It will be a rockin' weekend of tennis as the Crimson takes aim at the top and looks to settle the score with their foes from the Empire State.
Over the past few weeks the team has been finding their swing and putting together a series of good performances. On the Ned Weld Spring Break in La Jolla, CA, the Crimson lost its opening match to ETSU, who were coached by Yassir Zatini, a former college tennis star in the 90's, but followed it up with two solid wins. East Tennessee State was very tough on the ground – think of a team full of South Americans – who gave our guys fits in long rallies. It was our first outdoor match and the courts at USan Diego were very slow – but it prepared us for the rest of the trip. We would go on to beat UAB (Alabama-Birmingham) 6-1 with an impressive array of singles wins. Many of you may remember UAB from the mid-90's, when it featured a primarily South African line-up. On the final contest in La Jolla, the Crimson would down a tough Denver squad that had beaten Princeton the day before. The match came down to fifth singles, with 6'5" Casey "Rocky Mountain" MacMaster, a freshman from Colorado, playing his high school rival, now playing for Denver. Casey was down a break 4-3 in the third, only to rally to win the final three games. He punctuated the win with a screaming backhand down the line winner on his opponents second serve. It was a nice way to leave San Diego and it gave us a little tail wind for our ride home.
Back in Boston, the boys from Cambridge continued their winning ways, defeating Illinois State and Fairfield in a double-header last Sunday. Illinois State was on spring break and had just defeated Columbia before getting a dose of humility in Boston. The Red Birds gave us a shock, as they jumped out to leads in all three doubles, and eventually swept. But in singles, the Crimson went methodically to work on their opponents and won five of the six singles to give us a comfortable 5-2 win. Later that same day, our second unit went to work on Fairfield to give us a second tally in the win column. It was a great chance for the boys to stay sharp and see some live action before the Ivies. Wins in doubles, and at #1, Josh Tchan, #3 Alexei Chijoff-Evans, and #6, Tunc Kiymaz, secured the 4-3 win.
Please come out this weekend to support Harvard against their strong conference rivals.
Get pumped with the latest youtube promo commercial directed by Josh Tchan…
You can follow the match on a live twitter feed at www.twitter.com/HMTofficial!
Go Crimson,
Andrew Rueb
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Dave Fish
E. Scott Mead Family Head Coach of Men's Tennis
Harvard University Dept of Athletics
Murr Center
65 N. Harvard St.
Boston, MA 02163
fish@fas.harvard.edu
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