M. Tennis nets split result

A day full of the expected and the unexpected best describes the men's tennis team's dual meet Sunday at Levy Pavilion. In their first dual meet of the 1998 season, the Quakers (1-1) hosted 14th-ranked South Alabama and local opposition Swarthmore. As expected, South Alabama crushed Penn 5-2 in the early match. Unexpectedly, however, were the two upset singles wins by sophomore Mike Klatsky -- 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-4) -- and freshman Eric Sobotka -- 6-4, 6-4 -- over South Alabama, which was favored to sweep all seven matches. "[The singles wins] were pretty big because last year no one won against them." Mark Fisicaro, the lone senior on the team, said. Fisicaro moved up to the No. 1 singles position after junior Udi Kish quit in early fall. He dropped first singles versus South Alabama's Nic Chisholm 6-2, 6-2. In the doubles matches, opponents James and Claes Westlin defeated Fisicaro along with teammate David Schwartzman, 8-2. Penn fell completely to South Alabama's stronger doubles teams after the earlier singles surprises. The upsets did not surprise coach Gene Miller, however. In fact, he expected them. "If you keep playing [nationally-ranked teams] enough then you sort of forget [to be intimidated]," coach Gene Miller said. "It really brings the talent levels closer together. It just becomes who wants it more who fights it more." Miller indicated plans to continue playing top teams like Miami, Pepperdine, UC Irvine and Notre Dame to improve the quality of his team. The Quakers defeated Swarthmore in the later meet a resounding 7-0, as anticipated. However, the final score did not reflect the surprising tenacity of the Swarthmore team. According to Miller, the Garnet Tide was a much-improved team from a year before. In fact, one extended singles match went to a tiebreaker set. It was second singles match with junior Urs Baertschi vs. Swarthmore's Nick Slimack, with Baertchi emerging the winner -- 7-6 (9-7), 6-3. The junior believed his frustration was more his doing, although he realized Slimack's determination as well. "This guy was playing the match of his career," Baertchi said. "He was really hitting the ball well. I just kept missing my shots. The same thing as in the morning. I couldn't make those shots that had been my strength leading up to this event." However, he believes it's just temporary. Miller, Fisicaro and Baertchi all indicated a need to cut down on unforced errors by the team in general, but gave different reasons for their occurrence such as psychology of the opposition. Miller has a simple philosophy for dealing with the errors. "You just get the ball over the net and that creates a presence or a pressure on your opponent," Miller said. Miller believes that continued pressure eventually causes mistakes by the opposing team.