The men’s and women’s tennis teams have two pivotal Ivy League matchups this weekend, facing Harvard today and Dartmouth tomorrow. The men’s team will stay home to host its two matches at Reis Tennis Center, while the women will hit the road for their contests. Both squads lost their first Ivy match of the year last weekend to Columbia, 5-2, as the men fell to 8-6 and the women dropped to 6-4 overall.
The men’s team is eager to show that last week’s loss was not an indicator of what to expect from the rest of the season.
“Last week was kind of a fluke,” said junior Dan Brous. “We think that on this weekend we’ll come out with two victories.”
Brous feels like the team has a better chance to succeed if it can focus on obtaining the all-important doubles point.
“We’ve been struggling a bit with the doubles,” he said. “It’s very crucial to come out with the doubles point in both of the matches this weekend, as it gives us momentum going into the singles matches.”
Freshman Josh Goldstein was eager to weigh in on the Crimson and the Green.
“Harvard’s definitely the stronger of the two teams. It’s been a long time since we’ve beaten them, so this is a really significant match,” he said. “Dartmouth’s not as strong, but they’re still a very good team, and we can’t take them lightly.”
Freshman Kyle Doppelt shared the sentiments of both Brous and Goldstein.
“We came up short last weekend, and we’re looking to rebound this weekend. Harvard’s a huge match – we were close to beating them last year,” he said. “We should take care of Dartmouth, but nothing’s a given, so we can’t underestimate them.”
The team appears especially hopeful for a victory against Harvard today.
“Everybody really wants to beat Harvard, since they’ve had a lot of success against us in the past, and we want to establish our place in the Ivy League,” Goldstein said.
In the Red’s last match against Columbia, Brous and Doppelt were the only winners in singles competition, and the partnership of juniors Nick Brunner and Josh Raff was victorious in its doubles match.
Harvard is playing its first Ivy League match against Cornell today. Harvard is 4-9 overall this year. Dartmouth also has not begun Ivy play yet and will travel to Columbia today before coming to Ithaca to face the Red tomorrow.
The men’s team certainly has two tough matches ahead of itself, despite the pedestrian overall records of their opponents. However, Goldstein has the team’s main goal in mind.
“We’re trying to get two wins this weekend,” he said.
The women’s team will also face some stiff comepetition when it squares off today against a Harvard team which is ranked 19th in the nation. Junior Kasia Preneta was the only Red player to win a match the last time the two teams met on April 8, 2005. The Crimson took every other match that day in straight sets.
Against Dartmouth, the women’s squad will look to avenge a heartbreaking, 4-3, loss from last year. The Green are coming off a rough Spring Break trip in which it went 1-5, with all five of its losses being 7-0.
Archived article by David Sims
Sun Staff Writer