W. Tennis earns No. 5 seed

In team sports, confidence is an important ingredient to building a winning team. The Penn women's tennis team is fortunate to have such a feeling. Currently, the Quakers know neither their opponent nor the exact location of their first non-individual event of the season -- this weekend's East Coast Athletic Conference Championships. In fact, about the only thing known is that they are the No. 5 seed in the New Jersey-based tournament. The matches will take place on the campuses of Princeton and Rutgers, which is in New Brunswick. The location of each match will be announced this afternoon, along with the draw. "The only thing we can do is worry about ourselves," Penn coach Michael Dowd said. "We're prepared to play anybody." Penn junior Elana Gold is not only ready for the challenge of facing the unexpected; she is also looking forward to it. "I think it's a very good system," Gold said. "It's fun that you don't know until the night before who you're playing or where you're going. It's a lot of unknowns and it's exciting." "We don't really care about it. We're still going to be playing matches. We've just got to go out there and put it all out," said junior Anastasia Pozdniakova, who won both of her consolation matches at last weekend's Buckeye Invitational Tournament at Ohio State. Gold made it to the finals of her section in Columbus but lost to a fellow Quaker, freshman Louani Bascara by 6-4, 6-1. "The freshmen bring a lot of talent, and it's exciting. They're very good. They motivate the upperclassmen," Gold said. Going into what Dowd describes as "the most important event of the fall," Pozdniakova is not worried about this tournament, even though it is the first time that the team will play as a single unit. "As individualized as tennis can be, in college it's a team sport," Pozdniakova said. "[In] individual tournaments we just try to improve our game. We need to play the best we can [in team tournaments] because there's no room for experimenting." The team's chemistry has evolved over the fall season, even with all of the tournaments being individual invitationals. "It's been pretty competitive, in a friendly way. [We've been] pushing each other to be the best we can be. It'll hopefully show up this weekend," Gold said. This internal competition has given the team a feeling that it is a force to be reckoned with. "It gives a confidence [within the team] that there's no way that we're going to lose to any team easily. If [we lose] it should come down to a few points," Pozdniakova said. Although the Quakers finished ninth at last year's ECAC championships, Penn hopes it will fare better this time around. "Our goal is to win. We're prepared physically, mentally and emotionally. We're ready to play.? It's a chance to set the tone for the spring," Dowd said. And Gold stressed that, "We really want to do well here. You'll never see the 16 top teams all together [for the rest of the season]. There should be a lot of good tennis." The Quakers may not be sure what exit on the New Jersey Turnpike to take, and they may not know what to expect once they get there, but they know what they have to do to win.