Doubles do in M. Tennis

Harvard and Dartmouth proved to be double trouble for the Penn men's tennis team -- in more ways than one. The Quakers dropped both matches to the Ivy powerhouses, in large part because of a familiar nemesis, Penn's doubles play. Along with the two defeats, the Quakers' NCAA chances in all probability went down in flames. Penn (14-7, 3-3 EITA) played a similar game against both the Crimson and the Big Green and ended up with similar results, losing 6-1 and 5-2, respectively. Penn found ways to lose the doubles' point against its Ivy foes, succumbing both days in two of the three doubles matches. Against Dartmouth, Penn lost its two doubles matches in tiebreakers. "It's frustrating because we concentrate on doubles and we can't buy a point if we tried," junior Marc Schecter said. "It comes to the point that it doesn't affect singles because it happens so often." The doubles' point has been Penn's achilles heel throughout the season. Although the point may seem relatively unimportant because it's only one of seven, the point often serves as a bellwether for the entire match. The winner gains the momentum, the loser knows it will have to win four of six singles matches for victory. Against better teams, the task is too much to handle, and mentally becomes draining. "I don't think our team is very strong at doubles," sophomore Jeff Jackson said. "When the match gets tight, we're not winning the points. The doubles have been the weakness all season long and against the good teams it comes out to haunt us." The Quakers knew they would have to get all the breaks to beat Harvard, the top team in Region I and ranked 14th in the nation. Except for a strong performance by junior Neil Aaronson, who captured Penn's lone singles win, the Quakers discovered they could not overcome the Crimson's superior talent. "Harvard was not as good as they have been, but we didn't take advantage," Schecter said. "The way people played was at a high level, but as long as we didn't take advantage of the chances we had, we couldn't take advantage of them." Dartmouth was probably a bigger match for the Quakers because a loss to the Crimson was somewhat expected. However, the Big Green treated Penn to more of the same. "Similar story," Jackson said of the Dartmouth match. "We lost the doubles again. After losing the doubles, it's hard to win four of six singles." Penn's chances to qualify for the NCAAs are now extremely unlikely. The Quakers have already compiled Region 1 losses to West Virginia, Princeton, Harvard and Dartmouth. Only four teams from the region qualify. "Losing both matches puts our chances from slim to none," Jackson said. "It's going to be difficult to get there. We have to win all three [matches left] and need to have a lot of luck." Before the two matches, freshman J.J. Cramer said of the Dartmouth match that "probably whoever wins the doubles will take the match." Unfortunately for the Quakers and their NCAA dreams, he was right.