Harvard University Team Page
Chris Clayton
Crimson Blog #6
March 31, 2008
It was not an easy thing to leave Santa Barbara behind, but as we boarded the plan back to Cambridge, we had become better players than when we arrived.
On Tuesday afternoon we faced off against UCSB. We had a 5-2 win against them my freshman year, and perhaps we were caught slightly off-guard. It was surprising because given our strong performance against Cal Poly three days earlier and the way we have been playing lately I thought we were going to win. In doubles, the #1 team Ashwin and Sasha maintained their high level and won their match. At #2 and #3 doubles we struggled more. Dan and Mike seemed out of rhythm and the freshman team of Aba and Alexei struggled to hold serve. We lost the doubles point and geared up for singles. In the meantime, I had a blister dug out of my left foot which left me out of commission for the match. For the first time all year, three freshmen were in the singles line-up; Will, Alexei, and Aba. At #1 singles, Ashwin was up against an athletic baseliner that kept Ash in the back court and occasionally brought him in with drop shots. Despite a tight first set, Ash ended up losing in straights. Sasha at #2 singles played against a talented lefty with hard hitting ground strokes. Sasha pushed it into a third set, but lost 6-4 in the third. Alexei and Will toughed their opponents out in straight set earning us two victories for the day. Aba played below his usual level and lost easily. Dan on the other hand clawed his way through two tiebreakers giving us another win.
Turning to Friday, we hoped that our match against San Diego State would erase the hard loss against UCSB. We changed up our doubles line-up that put Dan and I at #3, Sasha and Alexei at #2, and Ashwin with Mike Hayes at #1. Dan and I started off with a three consecutive breaks of serve and return leveling the score 3-3. Finally after holding, we managed to win the rest of the set 8-4. On the other doubles courts, the other guys weren’t having the same luck. Ashwin and Mike played their guys close, with Hayes playing his best doubles so far on the trip. The Texans Sasha and Alexei also appeared to be playing well but coughed up two quick games at the end of the match giving San Diego State the doubles point. We weren’t too concerned though. Our singles this year has been our strong point, and we were prepared to battle this one out. Unfortunately, nearly all of us dropped our first sets, and looked as though we were about to be crushed. The momentum changed quickly though as I finally won my first set and most of the other guys were holding out in the second sets. The seniors Dan and Ashwin both won their second sets, and Aba was the first one off the court with a singles win. Alexei lost his match in three putting us down another point making the score 1-2 down. Ash fought hard in the third set, but lost making the score 1-3 down. At this stage, it was down to the last three matches on court; me, Sasha, and Dan. Sasha started showing some of the gutsiest tennis we have seen this year and pulled off a 7-6 in the third win that gave us another singles point. Next was Dan who managed to win 7-5 in the third despite being down a break in the final set. Finally, with the score evened out 3-3, my match was going to be the decider. With the help of interim coach Sasha, who guided me through the third, we clinched it 4-3. It was a hard day, and we needed to quickly prepare for Pepperdine the following day.
The Pepperdine campus at Malibu offers a spectacular view of the ocean and was a fitting location to end our spring break trip. We didn’t have much time to be tourists as we arrived and quickly broke into our warm up. For our doubles line-up, we had Ashwin and Sasha at #1, Mike Hayes and Alexei at #2, and the co-captains Dan and I at #3. The Pepperdine guys came out like a house on fire. They were surely the loudest and fastest team we had played against. My serve was broken the first game and for the rest of the eight game pro-set, we were playing catch-up and lost 8-2. Mike and Alexei stayed tough against their team playing solid doubles, but lost 8-5. Ashwin and Sasha were on a mission to make it into the NCAA tournament with their match counting as a last chance opportunity. The played professional level doubles, solidly beating their opponents. The singles matches were going to be an uphill battle with the way the Pepperdine guys were playing. Dan and Aba were the only singles victories, as we lost 5-2.
Spring Break ’08 has left Harvard Men’s Tennis ready for the Ivy Season starting this week and gave us an opportunity to relax. A special thanks to our housing families, the Foster’s, Tebbe’s, the Bank’s, and the Knowlwood Club for making our trip an extraordinary one. Also to Karl Gregor, our volunteer assistant who never accepted anything less than our best performance throughout the week, no matter what the circumstances.
