Tennis Rampant

 

The Harvard men’s and women’s tennis teams were both undefeated in the Ivy League this spring. The women (19-4, 7-0 Ivy) had the best winning percentage (.808) and most wins (21) in the history of the program. At season’s end they were ranked number 14 in the nation, their highest ever, up from number 56 last year. They upended the two-time defending Ivy champions, Pennsylvania, 6-1 to clinch the Ivy title and hand Penn its first Ivy loss since the spring of 2000. The women then defeated Oklahoma State, 4-1, and upset Arizona, 4-3, in the NCAA tourney. Their season ended with a 4-0 loss to the defending national champions, Stanford.

The men (19-9, 7-0 Ivy) captured their twelfth Ivy title in the last 15 years. The showdown at the end of the Ivy season pitted the thirty-ninth-ranked Crimson against forty-second-ranked Brown. Harvard triumphed, 5-2, and then upset seventeenth-ranked Virginia Commonwealth, 4-3, in the first round of the NCAA tournament before falling to sixteenth-ranked Alabama, 4-0, the next day.