W. Tennis result ECAC: W. Tennis inconsistent at Tourney

It only seems fitting that the final team tournament of the fall season should follow the formula that has become all too familiar to the Penn women's tennis team over the last two months. The Quakers' journey to West Virginia last weekend for the annual Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference invitational tournament featured all of the factors that have highlighted Penn's fall season – a crop of heavyweight opponents, brilliant individual performances scattered among some less-than-brilliant efforts, and a healthy helping of adversity – all of which have ultimately earned the Quakers a spot right in the middle of the pack. In the ECAC team competition, Penn (3-4) finished fourth in the eight-team field with 17 points, 121U2 points behind tournament team champion Cornell. The ECAC uses a scoring system in which nine individual round-robin tournaments are played, six singles and three doubles, with one representative from each college competing in each tournament. Points are awarded on a graduated scale for each individual victory and added together to arrive at a team score. The Quakers suffered a severe setback early in the tournament when junior Cori Sibley was forced to retire with what Penn coach Cissie Leary termed "a stomach illness." Sibley played through the pain in her first singles match, a 6-0, 6-3 loss to Meredith Jamieson of James Madison, before declaring herself unable to continue. Penn was subsequently forced to forfeit all of Sibley's remaining No. 5 singles matches as well as all of her No. 3 doubles matches, costing the Quakers valuable team points. "We weren't really all together as a team," sophomore Preety Sorathia said. "[Junior] Barrie [Bernstein] was sick coming in and Cori got sick during her first match. We did all right considering the circumstances, but we know we could have done better." Sorathia delivered Penn's top individual performance at the ECACs, overcoming an early first-round deficit and eventually rolling to an individual tournament title at No. 3 singles. In her first-round match, Sorathia trailed George Washington's Ellen Novoseletsky 5-2 in the first set before rallying to capture the match in straight sets, 7-6 (7-4), 6-2. "I didn't know it before the match started," Sorathia said, "but [Novoseletsky] is a highly regarded player nationally. Halfway through the first set, I started to play smart and set up my point really well. As the match wore on, she got more and more frustrated and I was able to pull it out." Sorathia's first match proved to be her toughest as she cruised to straight-set victories over James Madison's Renee Bousselaire, 6-2, 7-5, in the semifinals and West Virginia's Kavolina Krajewski, 6-2, 6-3, in the finals. "In the semis, [Bousselaire] hit the ball hard and wanted to dictate a fast-paced game so I just slowed the game down with lobs and forced her to play my game," Sorathia said. "I didn't have to change my game much at all in the finals. I just played steady and was able to beat her." At No. 4 singles, senior co-captain Suejin Kim also advanced to the finals with victories over West Virginia's Pam McGrath, 6-1, 6-3, and James Madison's Caroline Cox, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, before bowing out in the finals to Yale's Katherine Rhee, 6-4, 6-2. "It was a great tournament for the team because Preety and Suejin played really well and pulled out some tough matches," Bernstein said. "Recently, we haven't been getting the wins at No. 3 and No. 4 singles, but this weekend it was [senior] Leanne [Mos] and I who didn't play well and they picked us up. It's good for us because we know we can depend on everybody." In both No. 1 and No. 2 doubles, the Quaker tandems won their first-round matches easily, only to be defeated by the eventual tournament champions in the semifinals. Bernstein and Sorathia beat Cornell's Smith and Itskhoki, 6-4, 6-3, before George Washington's Shafran and Ramirez handed the No. 1 duo only their second loss of the fall season, 7-6 (8-6), 6-3. At No. 2, Mos and Kim cruised past Rutgers' Thayer and Tchourumoff, 6-3, 6-2, before being ousted by Craybas and Bousselaire of James Madison, 6-2, 6-0. Leary was genuinely pleased with her team's fourth-place showing against top-flight competition, in light of Sibley's forfeiture. "I think we did fine considering Cori had to forfeit and we got no points out of No. 5 singles and No. 3 doubles," Leary said. "That make it tough, but we played hard. I'd say it was a good tournament for us overall."

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