Princeton trips up W. Tennis at ECACs

Penn went 1-2, beating Cornell but losing to Syracuse and Princeton At last weekend's ECAC championships, the Penn women's tennis team saw its chance of winning the tournament slip away when it lost to powerhouse Princeton, 5-1 -- the opposite result of the team's match against Princeton in last year's ECACs. After defeating James Madison, Penn and Harvard, the Tigers then went on to win the ECACs with a 5-4 victory over Virginia. "I'm not shocked at the results," Penn coach Michael Dowd said. "Princeton's top four players played tournaments all summer. It's hard to play teams who have players that hungry." The ECACs mark both the first and last team competition of the Quakers' fall season, which consists primarily of individual tournaments. The team will not compete for the Ivy title until the spring season, which begins in late January. Dowd acknowledged the adjustment felt by many of his players this fall. "We do have a lot of young players on the court who have less experience," he said. "Our players need to step it up and compete and be ready for spring." Dowd saw potential in last weekend's matches. Prior to their loss to Princeton on Friday, the Quakers beat Cornell 5-2. "I think we have some work to do to get to where we need to be," Dowd said. "We're definitely not there." Penn junior Shubha Srinivasan believes a team discussion held after the Princeton loss motivated players for their match against Syracuse in the consolation round the next day. "We talked a lot about the match and we said we would be very positive," Srinivasan said. "The Princeton match was upsetting. They were just a better team than us but we learned a lot from that match and we played a better match the next day." Although Syracuse edged the Quakers 5-4, Srinivasan believes that Penn played better against the Orangemen than they did against the Tigers. "We had a flat match against Princeton," Penn sophomore Carla Dorsey said. "But we made a good showing the next day against Syracuse." Dorsey, whose doubles match with partner Niki DeCou was the deciding factor against Syracuse, remains optimistic about the team's future. "We really came together [in the match against Syracuse]," she said. "Everyone was cheering for each other. We still have a lot of work to do, but it's just one weekend of many." The Quakers will most likely send two players to the ITA Eastern Regionals on November 6 in Cambridge, Mass. Senior Anastasia Pozdniakova will definitely go and Dowd expects junior Lenka Beranova to compete there as well. For the remainder of the team, practice will be optional until mid-January. Conditioning will begin in mid-November. During the winter, the Quakers will prepare to uphold their impressive record. Last spring, the team was 19-2 overall and 6-1 in the Ivy League, losing only to Harvard. Beranova believes the ECACs will guide players' practice during the winter. "[The ECACs] made a lot of people realize they need to get more mentally tough and focus on improving their games before the spring season," she said.