W. Tennis to prove itself against Temple

In its last four matches, the Penn women's tennis team has proven it can play with quality opponents. Today, the Quakers have a chance to show people they can beat one. Penn (3-3) will host a tough Temple Owls squad (5-1) at 2:30 p.m. today in Penn's Levy Pavilion. After breezing through their first two matches, the Quakers have been mired in a slump recently, losing three of their last four contests. A victory over Temple would give the Penn women a shot in the arm as they head into the critical ECACs at Rutgers in two weeks. The Owls, though, won't go gently into that good night. After losing three of last year's big guns to graduation, Temple went out and found some new ammunition in the off-season to bolster its roster. "We added a lot of strength at the top this year after losing our top three seniors," Temple assistant coach David Astorino said. That strength begins with Croatian Ivana Granic, a senior transfer from Washington State who has assumed the No. 1 singles role for the Owls. Temple also scoured the junior college ranks and plucked Carmen Pruessner of Germany and Alex Rupnik of Croatia from Palm Beach Junior College to fill in at No. 2 and No. 4 respectively. Penn may be handicapped by the mental fatigue as the culmination of Sunday's six-and-half-hour marathon match against Penn State and midterms could take its toll on the Quakers. "These girls are exhausted," Penn coach Cissie Leary said. "They've been on the road and it's crunch time for them academically. With the match against Penn State and studying for midterms, they've had a long weekend. Hopefully, though, they'll be able to overcome it." The Quakers believe they can. "We can beat Temple, but we need to play our game," junior Barrie Bernstein said. "We'd like to win all three doubles matches to take some pressure off ourselves in singles." Temple also identified success in the three doubles matches as a critical component of an overall victory. "Doubles are important to us," Astorino said. "We want to get out quickly because we believe we match up very well against Penn in singles." If indeed the team competition is decided on the doubles side, the Quakers may have a slight advantage, as consistency in doubles has been a fundamental strength all season long. The anchors of doubles play have been Bernstein teamed with sophomore Preety Sorathia and seniors Leanne Mos with Suejin Kim. Junior Cori Sibley and sophomore Beth Brady have also played well of late. Penn is also coming off what Leary termed "an excellent performance" on Sunday against Penn State which may lend momentum to the Quaker cause. The Owls are certainly not taking anything for granted. "We know that Penn is always solid," Astorino said. This afternoon at Levy Pavilion, Temple may find out just how solid.