W. Tennis builds team unity in split

Two losses were two more than Mike Dowd expected from his team. The Penn women's tennis team received a bit of a reality check last week at its spring break matches in Florida. In the process, the players learned something about themselves and their team. Penn (5-4) competed valiantly against four very skilled Florida colleges, but in the end came away with only two wins in their four spring break matches. The Quakers began their trip in Miami on a very promising note, recording a 7-2 victory over Florida Atlantic, followed by a 6-3 triumph against Florida National. The Red and Blue then stumbled, losing in Orlando to South Florida and Central Florida by scores of 7-2 and 5-4, respectively. "We would have liked to have won three or even four of our spring break matches," Penn coach Michael Dowd said. "South Florida is a good team, but I think we could have beaten them. It's a little disappointing. The score doesn't indicate how close I think that match was." However, there were bright spots amid the two losses. After Penn's doubles teams lost all three of their matches against South Florida, they scored two important victories versus Central Florida. In addition, senior co-captain Lara Afanassiev and freshman Shuba Srinivasan both won three of their four Florida matches. Such feats indicated that the Quakers are not far away from beating the kind of highly skilled teams they played in Florida. "We've just never seen the level of competition in Florida before," junior Corin Esterowitz said. "They play a tougher schedule than we do. But our players are just as good as theirs, if not better." However, according to freshman Rina Borromeo, Penn may be superior to a lot of tennis powerhouses in certain aspects of play. "We support our teammates more than other teams support theirs," Borromeo said. "Other teams seemed to focus on individual players." Having learned from their losses as well as from their wins, the Quakers are now poised to raise their level of competition for the rest of the season. Dowd believes improvement among individual players will precede progress as a team. "Players have to improve upon various aspects of their games," Dowd said. "These aspects may be anything, from learning to serve and volley in tense situations to being sure to sleep and eat properly before a match." Above all, what Penn took away from their spring break trip was a renewed sense of team unity. The Red and Blue know that their ability to act as a whole will determine the success that they will enjoy for the rest of the season. "Our intensity grew with every match, and we all gathered around each other more and more," Borromeo said. "When we had a meeting on the last day of the trip, we all agreed that we had become more of a team."