W. Tennis Impresses At Harvard Invite

As the hosts of this weekend's Invitational Tournament, the women of the Harvard tennis team showed no mercy to their guests from Brown, Boston College, Boston University and Louisiana State. The three-day tournament marked the opening of the new season, and the Crimson force wasted no time in setting the tone for spring.

Senior Gabriela Hricko won her flight in the singles matches, defeating Cynthia Tow of Boston College in the finals with a 6-4, 3-6, 6-2 victory. It was a well-fought match, but Hricko pulled away at the end.

"I worked my way into the match," she said. "By the third set, I was really stepping into it and concentrating, which made all the difference."

Vedica Jain, a sophomore, finished third in the flight, playing a strong final match to defeat Ana Paula Mores of LSU 2-6, 7-6(4), 6-3.

"Overall, Harvard had a good showing, and it was a good start to the season," Jain said.

Although sophomore Aparna Ravi and freshman Sanaz Ghazal also turned in solid flight B performances throughout the tournament, the second flight of singles was won by Jamie Vallotton of LSU over Heath Young of Brown, 6-2, 4-6, 6-1.

The women proved far superior in doubles, dominating all other schools. The finals in each flight pitted the Harvard pairs against one another. A doubles match involves one set, in which the first to eight games--winning by two--is the victor.

In flight A, the team of Gabriela Hricko and Videca Jain won 8-4 against teammates Julia Kim and Sanaz Ghazal. In flight B, Aparna Ravi and Roxanna Curto garnered an 8-2 victory over Kristin Flink and Sinead Walsh 8-3.

"It was a very constructive weekend for everybody," Walsh said. "We know what we need to work on."

"We got off on the right foot and have aspirations for good things in the spring," said Coach Gordon Graham.

After the past few months of conditioning, he said he was happy that the tournament provided a lot of match play to prepare the team for big tournaments coming up against Arkansas and Vanderbilt.

If this weekend's Invitational is any indication, the women's team with be serving up a quite a number of defeats to their spring opponents.