Schecter leads M. Tennis in Penn Conference Classic

Players from five of the eight regions in the ITA gathered for the Penn Conference Classic this weekend at Levy Pavilion in a tune-up for the coming ITA Rolex regional championship, where rankings for the spring season are determined. The Penn men's tennis team's two best chances in the singles tournament were senior co-captains Neil Aaronson and Marc Schecter. Schecter had only one hour after his hard-fought quarterfinal match to rest. So he iced his back before meeting his semifinal opponent, Boise State's Ben Davidson. Unfortunately for Schecter, his fatigue showed and he was unable to keep up with Davidson's fierce shots. Schecter bowed out of the tournament with a 6-3, 6-1 loss, while Davidson lost in the finals. "Marc worked harder than other people," Penn coach Gene Miller said. Miller added he felt Schecter looked tired. In a thrilling match, Schecter was able to defeat his second-round opponent, Wisconsin's Marc Goldstein, 7-6 (7-3), 6-0. With the score tied at 5 in the first set, Schecter and Goldstein fought bitterly for the next game through four deuces until Goldstein prevailed on a drop-shot. Down love-30 in the next game, Schecter turned the match around. "I started to move around more and I found my range," he said. Schecter went on to win the first set, and was able to break Goldstein's serve in the second game of the next set after seven deuces and four break points. "He was on a downward swing," Schecter said. "The momentum could have changed, but I was able to keep it on my side." Schecter did keep the momentum, and rolled to a 6-0 second-set victory and became the only Quaker to advance past the second round. After defeating Princeton's Gene Katz in a grueling three-hour match, Schecter moved on to the semifinals. Schecter started the match slowly with unforced errors, which led to two breaks of his serve as he lost the first set, 6-3. He came back strongly in the next set with two breaks of his own for a 6-3 victory. Schecter's stellar net play and unforced errors by Katz gave Schecter the momentum as he won a break to take a 2-0 lead in the final set. Katz then made his charge with some great shots to break Schecter's serve and tie the match at 2. As the set continued, each player fought hard. Four games went to deuce, and every game had both players with at least 30 points. In the final game, Katz took a 40-30 lead and was ready to send the match into a tie-breaker. But then Schecter pulled out the victory with some tough shots at the net. "That's where I win my matches," he said. Meanwhile, Aaronson's run ended in the second round in a close and hard-fought duel with Virginia's Sid Nadkarni. After defeating Nadkarni in the first set, 6-2, Aaronson, who was ranked No. 20 in the region last spring, played into a tie-breaker in the second set. After eventually losing, 8-6, he then fell in the third set 6-3. Two Penn doubles teams reached the semifinals in the 16-team tournament. In one semifinal, Aaronson and David Graziani lost to South Alabama's Jaco Keyser and Marius Swart. The tandem of J.J. Cramer and Brad Goldberg reached the finals with an 8-5 win over another South Alabama pair. The final was no contest, however, as Cramer and Goldberg fell behind 6-1 en route to an 8-3 defeat. "We're going to surprise a lot of teams this year," Schecter predicted after seeing the tournament's final results.