Miller hoots over M. Tennis big 'W'

After getting bumped around by higher ranked opponents in California during spring break, the Penn men's tennis team did some bumping around of their own Saturday at Levy Pavilion, defeating Temple 4-3 and shutting out St. Joseph's 7-0. Saturday marked the second time of the season that Penn defeated two Atlantic-10 teams in the same day. The other being February 28, when the Quakers defeated a feisty George Washington team 4-3 and blanked St. Bonaventure 7-0. The Red and Blue expected to improve their record to 5-7 by the end of the day using the experience obtained against very strong teams over spring break (Notre Dame, UC-Irvine and Pepperdine). The Temple starting lineup, which boasts six international players from five countries and three continents, gave Penn quite a challenge. The Owls have faced Penn in each of Quakers coach Gene Miller's six years at Penn. But Temple has yet to win a match, although this season's Owls impressed Miller. "That was the best Temple team we've played since I've been here," Miller said. The outcome wasn't determined until the completion of the last match, in which junior Dave Schwartzman came back from being down against Owl Alex Carreteiro in the third set 4-2 to win four straight games and take the match 6-1, 5-7, 6-4 en route to claiming a Penn victory. "I played well the whole match. He picked up his level of play in the second and third sets." Schwartzman said "But I was able to pull it off." The Owls took the early advantage in the match by winning the doubles point 2-1. Senior Marc Fisicaro and junior Urs Baertschi fell to the No. 1 Owl duo of Fazel Syed and Lavnish Chatrath (both of India) 8-5. Simultaneously, Schwartzman and sophomore Dominic Rioux were ousted by the Owls tandom of Pero Pivcevic (Croatia) and Go Sasaki (Japan) 8-1. But the Penn doubles team of freshman Eric Sobotka and junior Jordan Szekely gave the Quakers confidence, going into the singles portion of the match by defeating Matthias Skjorshammer (Norway) and Carreteiro (Brazil) 8-6. After four singles matches were completed, Temple held a 3-2 lead. Penn freshman Oliver Varban handily defeated Skjorshammer 6-0, 6-4, while the Owls' Pivcevic overcame a toughly-fought second set by Baertschi to prevail 6-0, 7-5. Szekely warded off Sasaki 6-3, 7-5 and Sobotka fell in the closest two-setter of the day to beat Chatrath 6-4, 7-5. Captain Fisicaro came through with a huge win against Syed, overcoming a 6-3 first set loss to breeze through the second set 6-1 and to prevail in the third 6-4. Fisicaro's win tied the score at 3-3 and helped propel Penn to victory. Despite the closeness of the Temple match, Miller was very pleased with the outcome. He was especially content with the play of Fisicaro, Schwartzman and Szekely. "Marc [Fisicaro] played the best match of his career against a very tough player. He had a lot of tough losses over break to top-ranked players, I wasn't sure he was going to react," Miller said "This is a great breakthrough for him. It will be tremendous for his season. I'm very proud of him." Miller liked Szekely's concentration as well. After a close line call that went against him late in the match, Szekely was able to keep his cool and close out the match. After a successful Saturday, the Quakers look to their match against Rutgers Tuesday. Penn defeated Rutgers in the fall, 5-2. "[Rutgers coach] Micky Cook is a competitor, three or four matches could go either way," Miller said. "The match will be a true challenge to see how much we've improved, we always expect them to be tough." The players' opinions of the Scarlet Knights was swayed by the previous match. "They're not as good as Temple, but it will still be a close match," Fisicaro said. A win against the Scarlet Knights Tuesday would give the Quakers their first three-game winning streak of the season and will give them a shot at reaching the .500 mark with a win over Princeton Friday. "If we have three matches on a winning note going into the Ivy league season I would feel very good," Miller said. Miller feels that the Quakers' tough early schedule will help them out the rest of the season. "The slightest thing could make a difference, the tough schedule will really help out in the close ones," Miller said "We'll be in some barnburners down the road -- that's where you claim the victory."