M. Tennis drops two Ivy matches

After beating Villanova,After beating Villanova,Penn loses to Big Green,After beating Villanova,Penn loses to Big Green,Harvard back-to-back The Penn men's tennis team came up a little short this weekend, splitting Friday's two matches and losing to Harvard on Saturday. After beating Villanova 3-2 and losing to Dartmouth 4-3 and the Crimson 7-0, Penn's the overall season record drops to 13-10 and its Ivy record falls to 1-3. Thew Quakers began the busy weekend with Villanova in a revised four singles, one doubles format, hoping to use as few players as possible. With three points already in hand, Penn coach Gene Miller opted to default senior co-captain Jeff Jackson, take the 3-2 win and keep Jackson fresh for the subsequent Dartmouth match. "While I don't like to do it, I decided to put the team first,"Miller said. With one win in the books, Penn was far from done Friday afternoon. The Quakers next faced the Big Green, the Ivy champions from two years ago. After Penn split the singles matches, it came down to doubles, where Dartmouth took two of three matches for the decisive seventh point. All six singles matches were two-set affairs. Quakers freshman Udi Kish won his second match of the day, defeating Matt Fuller, 6-1, 6-3. Likewise, in what Miller characterized as a "super match", Quakers junior Brad Goldberg beat Holden Spaht, 6-4, 6-4. The final singles win for Penn came from freshman David Schwartzman, who beat Dartmouth's Avery Rueb, 6-2, 6-4. At No. 1 doubles, the Quakers team Goldberg and sophomore Fisicaro won 8-6. With freshman Urs Baertschi sidelined due to injury, Miller was forced to juggle his No. 2 doubles lineup, substituting freshman Drew Pozatek in Baertschi's place to team with J.J. Cramer. Playing together for the first time, Cramer and Pozatek kept it close, but eventually fell 8-6 to the team of Fuller and Rueb. The Big Green's No. 3 doubles tandem of Sauerhoff and Holzer won, defeating Jackson and Schwartzman 8-3. That loss ended the match, giving Dartmouth the 4-3 win. After almost eight hours of tennis on Friday, Penn was forced to take on the Ivy's topp team, Harvard on Saturday. Tired and undermanned, Penn proved no match for the Crimson. In its 7-0 loss, Penn was only able to take three sets in the six singles matches. The highlight of the match for Penn was in doubles, where the team of Jackson and Schwartzman defeated Harvard's Majmudar and Passarella 9-7. Penn lost the other two doubles matches, giving Harvard the seventh point. "Our guys did a great job pushing some of the matches to three sets," Miller said. Miller cited Harvard's experience and past success as being keys to the Crimson's victroy. "Before the matches were over, I said to myself that the winner of these matches is not going to have anything to do with tennis," Miller said.