Around the Ivies: Men's Tennis

This past weekend, the top of the Ivy League standings crystallized as Harvard beat Princeton and Columbia beat Yale. With league play finishing up, Harvard seems poised to repeat as conference champion.

1. Harvard (16-4 overall, 4-0 Ivy) Heading into a battle of the two remaining unbeaten Ivy League teams, No. 22 Harvard had the momentum of a nine-game winning streak. The Crimson extended that streak with a 5-2 victory over the Tigers, followed by a 4-3 win over Penn the next day. A key for Harvard throughout its streak has been the doubles play, led by top pair sophomore Denis Nguyen and junior Casey MacMaster, which has secured the doubles point in 10 matches this season.

2. Princeton (15-5, 4-1) While it came up short against Harvard, the No. 48 Princeton squad rebounded nicely with a victory over Dartmouth on Sunday. The loss to the Crimson was only the first home loss for the Tigers. Princeton continues to follow the lead of senior captain Matija Pecotic, ranked No. 7 by the ITA, who won his 19th and 20th consecutive Ivy League singles matches this weekend. Pecotic and the Tigers will face Cornell this weekend and then finish up their Ivy league schedule against Columbia, a team to which Princeton lost at the ECAC tournament in February.

3. Columbia (12-8, 3-2) Coming off of a tough weekend in which No. 47 Columbia lost to Harvard and Dartmouth, the Lions regained their form and dominated in victories against Brown and Yale on Saturday and Sunday. Senior Nathaniel Gery had a particularly strong weekend at the number-five spot, providing Columbia with its first singles point in both matches, losing only five games along the way.

4. Yale (16-5, 2-2) With Saturday’s match tied 3-3, the victory hinged on the No. 6 match between Yale senior Zachary Dean and Cornell sophomore Kyle Berman. After splitting the first two sets and taking the third to a tiebreaker, Dean was able to hold off two match points and bring the win home for the Bulldogs. After a tough physical and emotional battle against the Big Red, the No. 57 Bulldogs were handily beaten by Columbia on Sunday, moving down to fourth place in the Ivy League.

5. Cornell (13-7, 2-3) After its crushing loss to Yale, No. 51 Cornell had a solid 5-2 victory over Brown. The Big Red got solid play in the doubles, winning four out of the five completed doubles matches this weekend. Cornell’s upcoming weekend, when it plays Princeton and Penn, will be big in determining where it will finish in the Ivy League. Columbia, Yale and Cornell are all within one game of each other in the standings.

6. Brown (12-9, 1-3) While the Bears lost both of their matches this weekend, a bright spot came from junior Sam Fife and sophomore Daniel Hirschberg, who both won two singles matches. Fife and Hirschberg, who played in the No. 4 and No. 6 spots, respectively, on Saturday, moved up to No. 3 and No. 4 for Sunday’s match against Cornell. The higher-seeded matches did not prove to be too much for the two Bears, who accounted for all of Brown’s points this weekend.

7. Dartmouth (9-11, 1-3) Dartmouth hoped to turn around its disappointing start to the Ivy League season as it traveled to Penn and Princeton, but its frustrations continued as it came up short in both matches. Big Green’s sophomore No. 2 Chris Kipouras won both matches and did not drop a single set. Dartmouth will need to play better against Yale and Brown next weekend if it is to have any hope of improving its Ivy League standing.

8. Penn (9-9, 1-4) Penn finally won its first league match with a 4-3 victory over Dartmouth on Saturday. The Quakers, despite a 9-9 record, improved to 8-0 at home this year before losing in a tough match to Harvard. Although Penn is looking up at the rest of its Ivy League opponents in the standings, the weekend proved promising as the team showed real fight and determination in a comeback victory against Dartmouth and a hard-fought match against a highly ranked Harvard squad.