Game. Set. Match.
Harvard men’s tennis is no stranger to these words as their legacy of excellence and ambition has led them to 33 Ivy League Championships and 29 NCAA Appearances. This year’s team embodies a similar penchant for greatness, demonstrating standout performances heading into the 2025 spring season. The Crimson currently holds an overall record of 9-3, with wins against top-25 schools such as No. 22 NC State University and No. 20 Princeton. They also suffered close 3-4 losses against No. 12 Duke University, No. 13 Texas A&M University, and No. 17 University of Michigan.
Harvard currently holds a top-25 national ranking at No. 12. In the 2024 season, the team reached a program-record ranking of No. 6. For the 2025 season, player Peter Benjamin Privara ’28 has high hopes for the team. “I think our team right now can actually be even better than the team before, but it’s gonna be hard… I overall think that this team might rank around the top five. I would say it’s definitely in our power.”
A key highlight of the team’s season thus far is their victory in the ECAC Tournament. Their 24th championship win solidified them as a top team in the Ivy League. “We haven’t won [an] ECAC Tournament in a while. I think it’s been maybe four or five years. So it’s definitely a highlight of this semester so far,” said player Mitchell Lee ’28. “Hopefully, we can build upon it. It’s always good beating our Ivy League rivals, so it was fun.”
Harvard had an impressive undefeated run on the weekend of March 1 and 2, taking down Middle Tennessee 4-2 and Quinnipiac 7-0. “It’s really good to have weeks like this… As the coaches are always saying, teams which are [in the top] 10 to 50, on [a] good day, can beat us. So, those were good wins, and we can gain confidence from it,” Privara explained. Now on a winning streak, the team is headed to sunny Southern California to play against No. 6 UC San Diego, UC Irvine, and San Diego State.
As the Ivy League Tournament inches closer, every point matters. Still, captain Elisha Thornton ’26 spoke optimistically of the team’s potential.
“I don’t think the team has any limits to what we can achieve. I think we’ve proven that this year, as we’ve beaten Top 10 teams,” Thornton said. “We’ve lost super close matches to a couple of other front-end teams. So absolutely, we have what it takes to do some great stuff.”
If one thing is for certain, it is that the team could not have made it this far without Head Coach Andrew Rueb ’95. Rueb, a two-time Ivy League Player of the Year and team captain for the Crimson, recently surpassed his 100th career win as the team’s head coach.
“We’re all super happy for him to reach 100 wins. We see [the effort] he puts in every day, [and] how much he cares about us,” said Thornton. “He really puts an emphasis on this place being like [a] family. And I think we all feel that. We all feel supported and involved and feel like we’ve got one [of] the best coaches in college tennis.”
“He creates really good exercises [in] the practice. And he’s really nice and helpful,” added Privara. “If I’m having any kind of trouble, he just tries to help me and tell me what to do, and really tries to understand me. That’s what I really value about him.”
Including his time as an assistant coach and associate head coach, Rueb has led the Crimson to 286 team wins.
However, beyond the camaraderie cultivated by the coach, the players themselves fuel one another’s passion for the game and commitment to each other. These close ties have persisted for years: 2020 Harvard men’s Tennis captain Galen Lee ’20 expressed his love for the team before graduating.
“As much as it was a personal journey of introspection, HMT has always been greater than the self. I am incredibly lucky to have been surrounded by bright, talented individuals full of humility, many of whom have served as mentors to me. There’s a unique meritocratic environment on HMT that promotes excellence and ownership from the first-years to the captains,” he reflected.
This year, Harvard has its eyes set on claiming the Ivy League Title and making it far in the NCAA tournament. Thornton is confident for the season to come: “We know our goals. I can predict we’re going to come here and work on ourselves every day, we’re going to go play committed tennis every match we play, and we’re going to leave this without having any regrets, leaving everything out there.”
Jocelyne Delgado ’28 (jidelgado@college.harvard.edu) will be sitting in the front row at the Ivy League Tournament.