W. Tennis travels to ITA Team Regionals

The stakes will be high when the Penn women's tennis team travels to Virginia Tech this weekend and rolls the dice at the ITA Team Regionals. Tomorrow's tournament, to take place at the Burrows-Burleson Tennis Complex, promises to be a virtual crapshoot for the eight-team field. "I think we have a shot, but it's going to be brutal," Penn coach Cissie Leary said. "There's a lot of parity down there. Virginia Commonwealth, Richmond, Princeton – they all can play." Besides the three schools Leary mentioned, Penn State, Old Dominion, James Madison and the host Hokies will also be in attendance. Competition figures to be fierce as each squad will play two consecutive team matches with the overall winners earning berths to the prestigious Final Eight tournament. The Quakers are scheduled to play their first match at 9 a.m. and their second at 2 p.m. The seedings will be announced today. The Quakers (2-0) hope to weigh the odds in their favor by focusing on execution, an area where Leary feels the team has been particularly weak in the past few weeks. "We need to take advantage of the situation," Leary said. "When we have an opponent pinned on the baseline, we need to close and finish the point. We've been working on that all week in practice." "Last week [at the Eastern Regionals], I didn't execute well at the net," junior No. 1 singles player Barrie Bernstein said. "This week I hope to improve on that." One area where the Penn women have certainly improved in is health, as freshman Akiko Tokuda has almost fully recovered from a hamstring injury and will rejoin sophomore Beth Brady at No. 3 doubles. Freshman Adrienne Supino, who filled in at both singles and doubles in the season's first three weeks, is suffering from a sprained ankle, but will be available if needed. This weekend's tournament marks the first time this season that the Quakers have had their top seven healthy at the same time. Momentum may also give Penn a slight edge as the undefeated Quakers roll into Virginia in the wake of a number of fine individual performances at the Eastern Regionals last weekend. With only three weeks of experience under its belts, and a couple of strong teams waiting in the wings this weekend, Penn will use the ITAs to gauge where it stands among the elite tennis teams of the East. "This is the biggest tournament of the fall season," Leary said. "We're playing for rankings and Eastern regional status. This is huge."

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