W. Tennis sweeps weekend contests

If a tennis team glides to two easy victories in one weekend, and no one is there to see it, did it really happen? The Penn women's tennis team certainly thinks so, and despite the lack of fan support at Levy Tennis Pavilion on Saturday, it maintained enough intensity to roll over Seton Hall, 6-1, on Friday and American University, 5-2, on Saturday. The wins were no surprise to the Quakers, but they served as a nice change of pace from Penn's three-match losing streak over spring break. Penn junior Rochelle Raiss attributed the Quakers' wins this weekend to a team that has come together both on and off of the court. "We're a very close team this year," Raiss said. "We all get along a lot better than last year and we love the new freshmen." Raiss, who plays No. 1 doubles, has been paired with each of the three freshmen on the squad this year. Her current partner is freshman Rachel Shweky. Together they fought to bring home a relatively easy 8-5 win versus the Pirates, and an extremely narrow 9-8 loss to the Eagles. This weekend, however, was the first time Shweky and Raiss were paired together at No. 1, and according to Raiss they were still getting used to one another in Saturday's match against American. Nevertheless, the Quakers had two stellar matches, with only two singles losses overall. Unfortunately, the victories were rather lonely ones given the lack of spectators on both days. Junior co-captain Jolene Sloat said that she hopes attendance will improve on Friday when Penn plays its first Ivy match of the season. Having the matches outside should also help with publicity, but the wind this past weekend was not cooperative, forcing both matches inside Levy Pavilion. Luckily, the location of the match was irrelevant to freshman Sanela Kunovac, who competed at the No. 1 singles spot. Her win against Seton Hall's Kyli Lassalle was trying at the beginning, but Kunovac found her way to victory, 7-6, 6-0. "As the match went on I got into my groove," Kunovac said. "After the first set it was more or less cruising." Her groove apparently carried over to Saturday. Kunovac handily beat American's Irina Bovina, 6-2, 6-0. Penn freshman Nicole Ptak played at the No. 2 singles spot both days. She won a hard-fought, 6-4, 6-4, match versus the Eagles, but lost on Friday to Pirate freshman Kim Barfuss, 7-6, 6-4. Ptak considers the competition between herself and Barfuss to be primarily psychological, due to a shared past together. Barfuss and Ptak had previously competed four times before meeting again this weekend. "She's won more times than I have," Ptak said, speaking of her previous matches against Barfuss. "So she likes playing me."

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