SEASON REVIEW: W. Tennis has an op'erratic' season

Like a trip to the opera, the Penn women's tennis team's 1993 fall season both began and ended on high notes. Unfortunately, however, the Quakers (3-4) also fell asleep for a few of the acts in between. "We did pretty well overall," sophomore Preety Sorathia said. "We certainly had our ups and downs all year long, but we were really pleased with the way we finished." Overall, the fall campaign saw junior No. 1 singles star Barrie Bernstein lead the team in singles victories with 11, just edging out Sorathia and junior Cori Sibley. In doubles, the No. 1 duo of Bernstein and Sorathia was nearly unstoppable in posting a 16-3 overall record. Senior co-captain Leanne Mos also proved to be a steady force all season long at No. 2 singles and doubles. Freshman Adrienne Supino was the only undefeated Quaker, posting a 3-0 singles record in limited competition. Penn opened the year with a 9-0 massacre of a badly-outclassed Swarthmore team and, as an encore, tamed the mighty Georgetown Hoyas 7-2. On the strength of their quick start, the Quakers marched into Princeton for their first individual tournament of the season – the Eastern Collegiates – and hardly skipped a beat in capturing a number of tournament honors. Bernstein and Sorathia won the tournament's Flight A doubles championship in thrilling fashion as they rallied from a three-game deficit in the second set to defeat Melissa Ruben & Bridget Mykasa of the host Tigers in the three sets. Sibley also established herself as a top notch No. 5 singles player by advancing to the finals of the Flight C singles bracket. The following weekend, however, the Quakers lapsed into a midseason slumber as they dropped consecutive matches at the ITA Team Regionals to settle for a last-place finish and saw their record drop to 2-2. "Those matches [at the ITA Team Regionals] were matches we should have won," Bernstein said. "After last year's success, we began to take winning for granted. We had to work harder." Penn briefly rebounded to crush pushover Lehigh 9-0, but the series of grueling weekend road trips and the imminent threat of midterms began to take its toll. The Quakers dropped a six-and-a-half-hour marathon match with Penn State in the final moments and fell to Temple in another close match three days later. "We could easily have beaten [Temple]," senior co-captain Suejin Kim said. "It was a match we should have won." Following the Temple match, which saw the Quakers fall below the .500 mark for the first time all season, the Penn women were treated to a nine-day hiatus through Fall Break which seemed to revive the team. In its next tournament, the ECAC's at West Virginia, Penn finished fourth in an eight-team field despite an early injury to Sibley. With Sibley, the Quakers would likely have captured second place. In addition, Sorathia earned individual honors at the ECAC's by winning her bracket in No. 3 singles, while Kim also turned in one of her best performances of the year by advancing to the finals in No. 4 singles. The year's – and perhaps the decade's – crowning achievement came in the final and most prestigious tournament of the fall season – the ITA/Rolex Northeastern Regionals hosted at Penn's Levy Pavilion. Penn's No. 1 doubles tandem of Bernstein and Sorathia advanced from a field of 48 to the tourney's semifinals, marking the furthest progress of any Penn player in recent memory – in both singles and doubles. Bernstein also had a spectacular run on the singles side by advancing into the sweet sixteen from the 96-player field. "That was a great tournament for the whole team," Penn coach Cissie Leary said. "Barrie and Preety were amazing. That's the best we've ever done." The Quakers believe their success at the Northeastern Regionals has given them confidence and is only a glimpse of better things to come in the 1994 spring season. "It was definitely a good tournament to wind up the season with," Sorathia said. "It gives us momentum going into the spring. And next year we should be even better."

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.