W. Tennis hopes to continue success

When beginning a new season, sports teams often quote the trials and tribulations of the year before as testament to their ensured success in the new campaign. But when the Penn women's tennis team takes the court tomorrow and Sunday at its first competitive meet of the 1997 season, the Georgetown Invitational, they can point to last season more earnestly than the many who often talk of years gone by. It was the first match of last season's spring season, Karen Ridley was already down a set and had fallen behind 4-1 in the second. After Penn dropped the first set in all of the first three singles matches, this looked like it would be a must-win match for the Penn women's tennis team, if the Quakers had any prayer of defeating underdog Rutgers. But what was standing out in the mind of Quakers coach Mike Dowd was not that his team had opened poorly, but that it was the first match since the members of the team had received news of their coach Cissie Leary's death. He recalled his uncertainty about what to expect that afternoon or the rest of the season, with Leary's death coming in early November and this match in February. But when all three of Penn's singles matches sputtered to opening-set losses, he found his questions being answered in a way that he might have expected after what the team had been through. And then Ridley, a sophomore at the time, broke down. She could no longer hold her emotions, and in a moment that would characterize the remainder of the season for Penn, she began to weep from her baseline in the late-winter sun that hung in the sky that day. "I couldn't hit anything, all the balls were going by me and I couldn't think straight," she said later. "Cissie had died and school wasn't going well and everything was happening the wrong way since she was gone." Leary was the the positive force that stood behind the team members, referring to the players as "war dogs," her pet term for somebody who could come back from any spot to win a match or tackle something in life. But now she was gone and Ridley felt all the emotion and sadness of losing her come to a head. It was affecting the whole team, but Dowd could see it coming out for Ridley as he walked to meet her on the baseline before she could continue the match. Ridley would go on to win that one, however, just as the team would with a rally from the difficult position they found themselves in. It was a moment that they would later look back upon as a turning point. From that point, as if Ridley's success after being down was meant as an omen, the team would go on to a 17-7 record and a near miss of an NCAA Tournament berth. "It was an emotional season of ups and downs," said Afanassiev, a two-time All-Ivy honoree. "[Leary's death] was something that was always in the back of our minds." So with the memory of Leary never gone, but the emotion somewhat lessened, the 12 members of this year's Quakers embark upon this season with what they hope will be a much less emotional experience. "Things are much less uncertain than they were last year," said the team's No. 1 singles player and 1996-97 Ivy League Rookie of the Year, Anastasia Pozdniakova. "We have a definite coach and a set schedule and things are more together." Things definitely are more together as Penn boasts it has not lost one player from last year's campaign. All of the team's two seniors, four juniors, three sophomores and three freshmen were with them last year. Dowd, who was promoted to permanent coach in June, added three freshmen to this year's team. One, Shuba Srinivasan, the third-ranked junior player in India, contacted Dowd by writing him a letter expressing her interest in Penn. Senior co-captain Andrea Grossman brings her 6-1 record in tournament play from last season into this year's campaign. But as long ago as stats such as those were amassed, many on the team feel last season never ended but extends into this one as previous seasons often do. "We were all there watching on the sidelines last year," Afanassiev said as if to describe how fast last season seemed to go by with the emotion players carried with them as it went on. But in fact, she was describing its end. The team had gone 3-3 in the Ivy League before arriving in New Haven, Conn., for their final match of the year against Yale. A loss would put them into a four-way tie for fourth, fifth and six, but a victory would give them sole possession of third place. The previous eight matches in the meet had left the two teams tied with a 4-4 overall record for the day. All that was left was a final doubles match with sophomore Julia Feldman and freshman Elana Gold competing for Penn. To that point, Afanassiev described the season as one where the border-line ifs and buts had gone against her team, where success, although met frequently, was something that came despite Lady Luck's apathy for their team. "It was hard time last year," she said. "Nothing came easy at all." Feldman and Gold would have an early lead slip away but on this day, despite the way things had gone earlier, every ball would hit just inside the line and every call would go their way. When it was over, the rest of team, who had indeed been watching from the sidelines with their match completed, rushed the court and hugged the victorious Feldman and Gold. It was a victory that came on a final point where Feldman mis-hit the serve and Gold mis-hit the winning volley. That victory ended a season of great emotion and gave the members of the team something to build upon this season. But in keeping with the emotional turmoil of last season, the victory and winning point came in a way that, as Ridley described, was characteristic of Leary's approach to the game. "She always said to win in any way, and to win ugly. That's the way she always saw us, as those war dogs," Ridley said. Almost as if the point was a way for her to say move on and play tennis this coming season, a way of saying goodbye.