W. Tennis ends fall season at ITA Regionals

Penn senior Anastasia Pozdniakova reached the fourth round before falling to Jessica Arthur. William and Mary sure does like to give the Penn women's tennis team a hard time at the ITA Regionals. For the second year in a row, a tough Tribe opponent defeated Anastasia Pozdniakova, Penn's No.1 player, and eliminated her from the tournament. This year, Pozdniakova was defeated by William and Mary's Jessica Arthur, who ultimately lost in the tournament final to Princeton freshman Kavitha Krishnamurthy. Krishnamurthy also won Penn's Cissie Leary Invitational on September 26. Also competing for the Quakers in last weekend's four-day tournament -- which included the top college tennis players on the East Coast -- were senior co-captain Elana Gold and junior Lenka Beranova. Pozdniakova and Beranova played singles, while Beranova and Gold teamed up for the doubles competition. Even though no Quaker made it past the fourth round, Penn coach Michael Dowd said he feels that the ITAs were "a solid ending" to the fall season. "We played some of the best doubles I've seen all year," Dowd said. "We have some work ahead of us [but] I'm very satisfied." Prior to playing Arthur, Pozdniakova swept Marshall's Ana Ceretto 6-1, 6-2. In a slightly closer match, Pozdniakova sent Brown's Heather Young packing, 6-4, 7-6. "She played some really tough matches," Gold said of fellow co-captain Pozdniakova. "Her matches were long and draining." As seniors, Pozdniakova and Gold competed in their last-ever ITA Regionals. "We're very proud of [Pozdniakova]," Gold said. "She's definitely one of the best players in the East and she's proved that for four years." Unlike Pozdniakova and Gold, however, junior Beranova has one more chance to improve upon her ITA performance. In the first singles round this past weekend, Beranova lost to Yale's Jackie Fu. "I feel like I wanted to win the match so much that everything that was supposed to go right went wrong," Beranova said. "I wasn't patient enough." Beranova said she believes that the match was a learning experience that reflected her need to improve her strategy and patience level. She predicts she would be able to beat Fu in the future. "The tennis gods weren't on my side that day," she said of her 6-3, 6-2 loss. In the doubles competition, Beranova and Gold fell to Princeton in a close 8-6 match. Gold noted that while Princeton opponents Gayla Large and Amanda Hastings-Phillips were longtime partners, this fall was her first season playing with Beranova. "We lost a couple of key points," Beranova said. "It was a close one but they came out on top and we didn't." Gold said she hopes to get revenge on Princeton this spring when the Quakers will face the Tigers in a dual match. Dowd she that the Princeton match illustrated the Quakers' need to stay tough consistently throughout a match. The ITAs marked the end of the Quakers' fall season. Mandatory conditioning for the spring season will begin next week. All players are required to participate in non-tennis activities, including basketball and running, to keep in shape. Tennis hitting will be optional until mid-January. Overall, the ITAs gave the Quakers an idea of what they will be up against this spring. "[Regionals] was a good experience for us to see what's out there," Gold said. "It left a lot to be worked on but that's a positive thing for us."