The Crimson started by losing the doubles point against Princeton, falling on courts one and three with sets of 6-3 and 6-2, respectively. Harvard\u2019s freshman Kolos Kincses and junior Rohan Murali were winning 5-2 on court two, but did not finish due to the other pairs already losing their matches.<\/p>\n
In singles, the Crimson started behind by losing on court five, with senior Masato Perera falling in straight sets. This put the Tigers up by two points, putting pressure on Harvard. However, thereafter, the Crimson secured three back-to-back wins on courts four, one, and six with freshman Nathan Blokhin, No. 103 Murali, and sophomore Mitchell Lee all winning in three-set matches. Notably, Murali upset Princeton\u2019s No. 7 junior Paul Inchauspe on the first court. Princeton responded with a victory on court three, with senior Melchior Delloye losing in a tough battle. This tied the score at 3-3, leaving court two to decide the winner.<\/p>\n
Sophomore Benjamin Privara came through on court two in a match where all three sets went to a tiebreak. Privara lost the first set 7-6 (3), but recovered with back-to-back sets of 7-6 (4) and 7-6 (7). The match was a test of endurance, and Privara came out on top to take home the win, giving Harvard the 4-3 victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the closest college tennis match that I\u2019ve ever been a part of in nearly twenty years of coaching. No one deserved to lose that match,\u201c head coach Andrew Rueb \u201995 said.<\/p>\n
Coming off a hard-fought victory over Princeton, Harvard returned to action the following day against Penn. Despite a 4-1 loss, the match was more competitive than it looks.<\/p>\n The Crimson started in a hole again, dropping the doubles point. The Quakers got the first win on court one with their 29th-ranked duo defeating Harvard\u2019s 77th-ranked duo, Blokhin and Privara, in a 6-3 set. The Crimson responded with a victory on court three with a comeback by junior James McDonald and Perera. Harvard was down 5-3 in the set, but the pair came back to win 7-5 by winning four straight games. However, this momentum was short-lived, with a loss on court two that gave Penn the victory in doubles.<\/p>\n The tide, as it did against Princeton, did not swing in Harvard\u2019s favor during the singles action. Delloye lost on court three, followed by Perera on court five. This put the Crimson at a 0-3 deficit, meaning Harvard needed to win the four remaining matches to take home the victory. Privara secured a point for the Crimson with a 6-4, 6-3 victory on court two. Despite Harvard being in the lead on courts one and four, Penn gave the final blow to Harvard with a victory on court six, with Lee losing in straight sets 6-2, 6-3.<\/p>\n The Crimson ended the weekend with a 1-1 record in the Ivy League. Harvard continues its league play over the next few weeks, with a match against Brown (15-10, 0-3) in Providence, R.I., on Friday, followed by a match against Yale (15-6, 2-1) at home on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Harvard men\u2019s tennis team (11-10, 1-1 Ivy) opened up its Ivy League play with a doubleheader this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":{"0":"post-590425","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Doubles](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/021039_1385380.jpg.1500x1000_q95_crop-smart_upscale.jpg\")
Doubles partners junior Rohan Murali and freshman Kolos Kincses cheer each other on. | By Jason Deng<\/a>Harvard 1, Penn 4<\/p>\n