W. Tennis crushes Lehigh

The Penn women's tennis team seems to be making a habit of dominating Lehigh. Having won the last nine meetings with the Engineers, yesterday's 9-0 sweep was all too familiar. Junior Preety Sorathia led the destruction at No. 1 singles by defeating Lehigh captain Elena Casacio 6-1, 6-2. Picking up on Casacio's inconsistent serve, Sorathia managed to overpower her opponent. "I played really well," Sorathia said. "This was a good match to get my rhythm back together and get me ready for the tournament this weekend." Sorathia played first seed because senior co-captain Barrie Bernstein could not make the beginning of the match. Stepping up in the lineup did not prove to be a problem for Sorathia, who felt no additional pressure playing in the No. 1 spot. Sophomore Adrienne Supino joined Sorathia for first doubles for the Quakers (4-1), which is also usually played by Bernstein. The pair quickly took the lead and finished with an 8-3 victory over Casacio and Sherie Rosenberg. In other singles action, freshman Lara Afanassiev played second seed Rosenberg. After losing the first two games, Afanassiev came back to win 6-2, 6-0. "I became more consistent," Afanassiev said. "She started making more mistakes and playing worse." At last weekend's Brown Invitational, Afanassiev sat out due to a bad cold. Although she was still recovering during yesterday's match, she hopes to be better for the ITA Team Regionals at Penn, which start Friday. "This weekend is going to be really hard," Afanassiev said. "My ground strokes have been really good lately, but [yesterday] they were horrible. Hopefully, I'll be on this weekend." Senior co-captain Cori Sibley helped complete Penn's rout of Lehigh (4-9) at No. 4 singles. She played a perfect match and ended without giving up a game to Lopa Patel. "I just let her make the mistakes," Sibley said. "She wasn't very consistent." The only close match was at No. 3 singles. Coming off of an injury, freshman Kathy Charneco won the first set 6-3. The second set proved to be more of struggle, as she took the match in the tie breaker without losing a point. Yesterday at Lott Courts, the Quakers kept the winning tradition alive by beating Lehigh for the 10th year in a row. This easy victory should be an added boost of confidence for Penn when it hosts the ITA Team Regionals Friday.