Tennis: No. 19 Harvard hands men first Ivy League loss of season

The men’s team came in knowing that Harvard would not be easily defeated — the Crimson were ranked 31 spots above the No. 50 Tigers, although the teams came in with identical 14-4 records.

“Going into today’s match against Harvard, we knew everyone … would have to be at their best,” sophomore Zack McCourt said.

“Going into the Harvard match, we set ourselves up to be in a good position,” head coach Billy Pate said. “We were the only two undefeated teams [in the league], so there was going to be a fair amount of pressure.”

In the end, the match was very close, with a few key points deciding the outcomes of several matches. The Tigers got off to a good start, with senior Matija Pecotic capturing two sets 6-1 each after losing the first set 4-6 to win his 19th straight Ivy match.

Freshman Jonathan Carcione, playing in the sixth spot, defeated his opponent, but Princeton lost the rest of the singles matches. McCourt and junior Dan Richardson had close matches, losing 3-6, 4-6 and 5-7, 5-7, respectively. On the doubles side, Harvard took the point 2-1, with Princeton’s first doubles team of Pecotic and McCourt losing 7-9.

“Unfortunately, only a few key points kept us from winning quite a few of the matches, and had we won those, the overall outcome could have been much different,” McCourt said. “Harvard’s players were better able to stick to their game plans during the big moments.”

“I think losing the doubles point was critical,” he added. “And we certainly had our chances to convert at the [number] one doubles position and didn’t take advantage of those opportunities as we have previously this season.”

The women also found Harvard a challenging opponent.

“We expected a tough match at Harvard because we’ve had some very close matches with them in the past few years,” sophomore Lindsay Graff said. “But we knew we wouldn’t have a problem as long as we played our game, which is exactly what we did. Rather than worry about their antics, we simply came in and took care of our side of the court.”

Princeton secured the doubles point with close wins in first and second doubles. However, it looked at first as if Harvard would be able to secure a win just from the singles side, as Harvard won three of six immediately. However, Graff won 6-4, 6-2, junior Katherine Flanigan won 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 in the second spot and freshman Emily Hahn came through with a 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 win in the fifth spot to cap the Tigers’ comeback.

“Winning the doubles point was a major factor in the win,” Flanigan said. “Harvard is a loud and upbeat team, so we needed to show our positive energy.”

“The major factors in today’s win were our flexible strategies and positive attitudes,” Graff said. “We were quick to adapt our game plans ... and we remained positive the whole time, which is key against a fiery team like Harvard because they weren’t able to ever really gain the momentum.”

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Against Dartmouth (9-11, 1-3), the men won a decisive 5-2 match.

“The key was to not have an emotional hangover [from the Harvard loss],” Pate said. “We were tense in the doubles, and we had to kind of rally to win the doubles, but we played loose and went for our shots and got a solid 5-2 win.”

The women, however, lost a very close match 4-3 against the Big Green (8-7, 1-3).

The teams finish Ivy play with matches against Cornell and Columbia next weekend.

“We’re going to focus on controlling what we can control, and we have to try to do our best to win these last two matches,” Pate said. “We can help ourselves by controlling what we do with the matches next weekend and put ourselves in position to qualify for the NCAA tournament. So that’s our goal now.”

Graff expressed a similar mentality on the women’s side.

“We’ve still got some tough matches ahead of us,” she said. “We’re just trying to focus on our own matches and what we can control, and we’ll see how everything works out at the end.”