SPORTS BRIEFS: Tuesday, February 9, 1999

Women's Tennis warms up at Virginia Tech The matches counted towards individual players' records, but no team results were recorded. The first team matches of the season for the Quakers will be this weekend as Penn hosts four other teams at Levy Pavilion. Anastasia Pozdniokova, Penn's No. 1 player, posted scores that were typical of the action for the Quakers. The Penn junior dropped the host Hokies' Ines Khelifi, 7-5, 6-3, but fell, 7-5, 7-5, the following day in a match against Virginia Commonwealth. Calling the tournament a prelude to this weekend's home action, coach Mike Dowd said the point of the tournament was to play a lot of matches early in the season. Much of the main action is on the practice court as Penn gears up for its spring action. For example, Dowd said he is trying to bring more intensity to the doubles teams because they play short eight-game pro sets during match play. "You can't have lose games," Dowd said. "We need to go after the ball -- be like the tiger." To that end, Dowd is having his players literally growl while on the court. "It's a fuzzy little tennis ball," Dowd said. "You can't be scared of that." -- Josh Callahan