Harvard women’s tennis will host Brown and travel to Yale during its penultimate Ivy League weekend, according to an April 8 announcement. The Crimson will play their first conference home match against the Bears on Friday, April 10 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time before heading to New Haven for a match against No. 58 Yale on Sunday, April 12 at 1:00 p.m.
These upcoming matches are significant as Harvard seeks its first Ivy League win of the season after recent close losses. Last weekend, the Crimson dropped matches to Princeton and Penn but showed resilience by winning the doubles point against Princeton and securing singles victories from Kavya Karra and Natalie Block. The deciding match against Princeton went to three sets on court one, highlighting how closely contested it was. Against Penn, Harvard forced three sets on four of six singles courts with Claire Shao earning a point for the team.
Individually, Kavya Karra leads all Harvard players this season with 19 singles wins and a program-best-tying 24 doubles victories since at least 2009. Karra’s partnership with Stephanie Yakoff has resulted in a record-setting 17 wins as a duo since that same year; they remain undefeated in dual matches this season with an 11-0 record and are currently ranked No. 40 nationally in doubles. In singles play, Yakoff holds an impressive record of 18-5 and is ranked No. 86 in the ITA Division I Women’s Singles Rankings.
First-year player Claire Shao has made notable contributions as well, tallying up fourteen singles wins while mainly competing at No.3 singles and twelve doubles victories from the No.2 position.
The Brown Bears come into Friday’s contest with a strong overall record of fourteen wins but only one victory so far in Ivy League play this season; they recently earned their first conference win over Cornell after losses to Yale and Columbia earlier this year. Historically, Harvard holds a favorable all-time series lead over Brown (41-14), though it narrowly lost their most recent meeting at the ECAC Championships.
Looking ahead beyond this weekend’s action versus Brown and Yale—the latter currently ranked fifty-eighth nationally—Harvard will finish its regular season next week by hosting Columbia and Cornell.
