Both the men’s and women’s tennis teams started their Ivy League season with three strong victories on the trot against Penn, Brown and Yale. However, their fortunes diverted this past weekend against Dartmouth and Harvard.
The men’s team (18-6 overall, 3-2 Ivy League) hosted their archrivals Dartmouth (11-10, 2-2) and Harvard (17-6, 3-1) at the Lenz Tennis Center this past weekend. The Tigers were favored for both matchups, ranking 30thin the nation compared to 54thfor Dartmouth and 35thfor Harvard.
However, their superior ranking did not show in two lackluster performances. The Tigers lost 5-2 against Dartmouth, and coached Billy Pate was disappointed, saying: “We haven’t had many letdowns this year, but today wasn’t our best performance.” Although the Tigers won the doubles point, they lost five singles games in a row and their only victory was via senior Dan Richardson’s 6-1, 7-6 (3) win over Max Schmidt.
The Harvard match was the third chapter of an ever-growing rivalry. The Tigers and the Crimson split their first two matchups, with Harvard winning in the ECAC Championship in February and Princeton winning in San Diego in March. However, the victory once again went Harvard’s way in Sunday’s matchup, as the Crimson ran out 4-3 winners. The Tigers once again snatched the doubles point, but lost four of the six singles matches to disappointingly drop to 3-2 in the Ivy League. Impressive on the day were senior Zack McCourt and sophomore Tom Colautti, who beat the 10thranked pairing of Denis Nguyen and Brian Yeung. Colautti himself won his singles match, but McCourt was unable to beat 37thranked Nguyen in their singles match, dropping the match 6-4, 6-3.
The 53rdranked women’s team (11-7, 5-0) had much greater success, beating 37thranked Dartmouth (15-5, 2-2) and 63rdranked Harvard (7-9, 0-4) in their matchups. These victories put the Tigers firmly in the driver’s seat for the Ivy League title, as they have mathematically guaranteed a shared-victory. Another victory next weekend will give the Tigers an automatic spot in the NCAA Championships.
After winning the Ivy League title last season on the back of a 7-0 season, the Tigers continue their fine form by dispatching favorites Dartmouth 4-3. The Tigers won the doubles point with victories by the pairings of senior and captain Lindsay Graff with sophomore Alanna Wolff and junior Amanda Muliawan with sophomore Dorothy Tang. Muliawan and Tang would go on to win their singles matchups as well, before senior Katie Goepel completed the 4-3 victory with a 6-4, 5-7, 6-1 victory on court six.
Against Harvard, the Tigers won five of their six singles games via Goepel, Tang, Wolff, Graff and freshman Katrine Steffensen after dropping the doubles point despite Muliawan and Tang winning another doubles matchup, to make it five unbeaten matches in a row for the pairing. This victory clinched a share of the Ivy League title for the women’s team.
Both the men’s and women’s teams will complete their Ivy League fixtures this weekend as the men’s host Columbia on Friday before travelling to Ithaca, New York, to face Cornell on Sunday whilst the women’s team play the opposite schedule, travelling to Columbia and hosting Cornell. Both teams will hope to close out their Ivy League matches with important victories.
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