Afanasssiev and Grossman prepare to part

After four years on the Penn women's tennis team, the two are like sisters. The content of those late-night conversations on the road will remain private, thank you. Besides, there are so many little things, so many small bits of their lives wrapped up in them that they can't possibly be held accountable to recollect even one. And even if they could, the things talked about would seem insignificant to anyone else. That's the way the friendship of seniors Lara Afanassiev and Andrea Grossman has been since their freshmen years. They've spent so much time together and shared so much as four-year players on Penn's women's tennis team that it is hard to distinguish any one experience or any one late-night chat as overly significant. It's also the reason it is hard for them to meet now, during that short span of time between the fall and spring seasons -- when they no longer see each every day in practice or matches. In fact, they've become such permanent fixtures in each other lives that when they first see one another, they come across like two sisters who haven't been together in five years. "Oh, I've missed you so much," Grossman whispers to Afanassiev. Afanassiev returns the greeting with equal enthusiasm, reaching over to give Grossman a small hug and tell her how much she missed her. Next, they begin to talk of recent job interviews and school with the same eagerness of those two sisters who have years of catching up ahead of them. How long have they really been apart? "Oh, it's been a week," Grossman says. "Yeah, I haven't seen Andi since the last practice before going off to Princeton last weekend," said Afanassiev, who agreed. Such encounters have taken place innumerable times during their stay at Penn. "Oh, we've had a lot of these," Grossman said. But what makes yesterday's particularly difficult is that they know the number of these melodramatic greetings are numbered. "It's scary," said Grossman of their approaching graduation. "We've been together so long as college students, and now its almost over." Indeed, it's hard to believe that such apprehensions could exist when the day they first met each other seems like an experience in the recent past. They came to Penn as the "Suburb Girls," Grossman from Scarsdale, N.Y., and Afanassiev from Marlboro, N.J., to the south of the Big Apple. Both from strong high school teams, they stood out from most tennis-playing freshmen accustomed to only the individual competition of junior tennis. "I remember when we first met each other," Afanassiev said. "We were both laid back and just wanted to play and have a good time." Their inborn team-first attitude allowed both to "naturally" become leaders as early as their sophomore year when team captain Preety Sorathia went down with an injury early in the season. "We went to NCAAs that year and we were kind of looked up to be the leaders by that point," said Afanassiev, who was playing No. 1 singles at the time. The leadership roles continued for each during their junior campaigns, when the pair became co-captains. It was the natural evolution for two women who were already the oldest on the team. "We were alone together at that point," Grossman said. "We were pretty responsible then." Being left alone together was something they were used to, however, as the two had been in a similar situation since the beginning. They began as two of the three freshmen recruited to play tennis four years ago, but they were soon left by themselves as the only Class of 1997 representatives on the team. They roomed together, relied on each other and even watched each other's backs on the way home from the movies. "We roomed together on the road back then," Grossman said. "One night on a trip to California we decided to see a different movie from the rest of the team." The movie, Just Cause, turned out to be exceedingly scary for both of them, and the walk back on deserted roads was a long one. But the experience of relying on each other freshman year wasn't a singular one. Both remember their absence from campus the first few weekends. "On those weekends when everyone was meeting new people and making friends I kind of felt like I was missing a little bit," Grossman said. "But I would get be able to look at Andi," said Afanassiev, continuing the thought. "And know I had her as someone to rely on and talk to. It made it easier." Talking was something they've done plenty of as road roommates, especially after lights out. "It was great to have someone to come back to at night after a tough loss and have someone to talk it over with," Afanassiev said. There weren't too many losses to talk about over four years, as Grossman has posted a 33-15 record since her freshman year, and Afanassiev a 47-28 mark since the same time. Both know that college tennis is coming to an end, but as they will tell you, those long-lost friend routines will just have to be taken somewhere else. "We'll both be in New York sometime soon," Wharton student Afanassiev said of her and Economics major Grossman. "We need a new city to conquer." "Yeah, and I can even see us playing tennis afternoons after work down in the city," Grossman added with a laugh. So if in the coming years, during a ride downtown on the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Drive, two women hugging and eagerly telling stories can be spied on a tennis court next to the East River, don't be fooled -- they've seen in each other just recently and are still close friends. It's just Grossman and Afanassiev -- permanent pieces in each other lives -- catching up on what they've done in the past few days.