M.TENNIS RES PRINCETON INVIT.: M. Tennis sees improvement at Invite

On paper, the performance of the Penn men's tennis team at the Princeton Invitational this past weekend looks somewhat disappointing. After all, Penn only won two of its main draw matches. But coach Gene Miller takes a different view of the results. "A couple of kids excelled. Everybody else didn't fare as well as I would have liked, but they didn't actually play that bad," Miller said. "It's only natural as a coach that I was hoping for more, but I am encouraged that we are better as a team than last year." The most impressive performer for the Quakers was sophomore Andreas Olofsson. After a 6-1, 6-3 first-round setback to John O'Brien of Notre Dame, Olofsson strung together three straight wins in the consolation bracket to reach the finals in the singles competition. However, Olofsson's run ended with a tough loss to Nick Leschli of Princeton, 6-7 (7-3), 6-4, 7-5. "He played well," Miller said of Olofsson. "He beat some good players. He beat some players none of our guys could beat last year." Junior Marc Schecter and freshman Ehren Stenzler were the only other Quakers to win singles matches. Schecter defeated Blake Spahn of Notre Dame, 6-4, 6-3, in the first round before falling in the second round to Spahn's teammate, Ron Mencias. Meanwhile, after a first round loss, Stenzler beat Mike Beckett of Columbia, 1-6, 6-4, 7-5, in the consolation bracket. "It was a good win for Ehren," Miller said. "Beckett played No. 2 [singles] for them last year." In doubles action, the only Quaker duo to win a match was the team of Schecter and senior captain David Nathan. The pair won its first-round match against Tommy North and Jamie Viqueira of Notre Dame, 8-5. Nathan and Schecter lost in the second round, however, 8-2, to the Princeton team of Dave Kreidell and Reed Cordish. "We're disappointed," said Schecter of the pair's play. "We feel we're better than most [doubles] teams in the league, and we just had an off day. We're definitely not satisfied." Coach Miller feels that there are some good reasons for the Quakers' less than stellar results. A big reason was the presence of national power Notre Dame in the Invitational field. "The field was much tougher this year. So I think that we had fair results," Miller said. "We had some wins over those schools, and that's good. I was hoping for more, but the results are understandable." Another factor in the Quakers' performance is injuries, which struck the Quakers again over the weekend. Freshman Brad Goldberg was forced to retire from his consolation match against David Mann of Columbia due to tightening in his lower back. Meanwhile, last season's No. 1 singles player, junior Neil Aaronson, and No. 6 singles player, sophomore Hans Helmers, are still recovering from off-season hand surgery. Both are expected to return by the start of the spring season. Also, freshman J.J. Cramer has been plagued by tendonitis. "We've had some guys miss some practices because of classes, and we have all these injuries," Miller said. "Once we get everybody together and playing, we'll be good." The main goal of the Quakers heading into the Invitational was to prepare for the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Championships, to be played this weekend at Princeton. "We saw Columbia and they definitely tanked some of their matches," Schecter said. "None of our guys quit when we were down. I think that will prove good for us next weekend." "We need to do a lot better if we want to do well next weekend," Miller said. "But we'll be there next weekend. We are definitely better than we were last year. You can see it on the court and in the results, but only time will tell how much better."

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