Mixed results against top competition for W. Tennis

The Quakers beat two ranked teams, but fell to three more on their trip to the West. The five nationally ranked teams that the Penn women's tennis team played over spring break in California and Las Vegas might have all thought they would have no trouble sweeping the unranked Quakers. They were wrong. Penn overcame No. 68 UNLV and No. 44 Illinois State on March 12 and 13, respectively. And even though the Quakers lost handily to Oklahoma State, Fresno State and Stanford, Penn sophomore Carla Dorsey believed these matches were all closer than the scores may make them seem. "Their players aren't better athletes than us," Dorsey said of the killer trio. "But they play their big points a lot better. [On points] where we might get timid, they play it out. They have a lot more experience with big points, and it's the big points that count -- they're what make the scores look lopsided." Penn started out their West Coast matches by beating UNLV, 5-4. Penn captain Elana Gold said the Quakers were especially happy about beating the Rebels since they regularly vie with the best the Western conferences have to offer. The next day, the Quakers took Illinois State, 6-3. Gold's match was especially impressive. After losing the first set, 6-1, and being down 5-1 in the second set, she took the match to the third set and pulled off a win. No. 52 Oklahoma State gave Penn a little more trouble. At No. 6 singles, Penn sophomore Jolene Sloat didn't let the Cowboys' Cameron Stout win a single game, while Penn's Rochelle Raiss took Ashleigh Dolman, 6-1, 6-4. Raiss then teamed up with Penn junior Lenka Beranova to play doubles, and the duo overcame Dolman and Maria Galoustova, 8-4. The Quakers team of sophomore Louani Bascara and Anastasia Pozdniakova was tied at 8-8 before losing the match in a close tiebreaker. The next two schools the Quakers faced -- Fresno State and Stanford -- were probably the toughest teams they will see all season. Penn was unable to take a single match from either school. At No. 1 singles, Pozdniakova took Fresno State's Kandiss Creighton to three sets after falling 6-1 in the first set. Beranova lost her match by a close 7-5, 7-5 margin at No. 2 singles, while Justyna Wojas lost to the Bulldogs' Kelly Ramirez after a 7-5, 6-3 battle. Before heading home, the Quakers faced No. 1 Stanford at the Taube Family Tennis Stadium to challenge some of the top tennis players in the nation. "The whole atmosphere of playing the No. 1 team in the country in their stadium with a huge scoreboard was a little intimidating," Penn coach Michael Dowd said. "But we stepped up and played very well. We played some of the best tennis we played all year." At No. 3 singles, Penn junior Shubha Srinivasan faced Gabriela Lastra -- who is currently ranked No. 68 in the country -- in an intense three-hour battle. Srinivasan took the first set, 7-6, before Lastra came back and finished the match, 6-3, 6-4. "Shubha played an amazing match," Gold said. "[Playing Stanford] was fun, because we had nothing to lose." Doubles was the Quakers' strength in the Stanford match. Raiss and Beranova lost their close match at No. 1 doubles, 8-7, and Bascara and Pozdniakova fell, 8-5. Gold believes that the upcoming Ivy season -- which begins April 1 against Princeton -- almost looks easy after playing at such a high level of competition. "We all got a lot closer [over spring break]," she said. "When it comes down to four-all in an Ivy match and you feel united with your team, you're going to want it that much more for yourself and everyone else." But Dowd emphasized that the team can never get too satisfied with its performance. "We saw the highest level of competition we'll see all year. From here on out, we won't see teams as good as these," he said. "But the Ivy season is in the horizon, and we have to keep pushing."

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