M. Tennis looks to rebound against Ivy foes

It's good to be the spoiler.

After seeing his Quakers lose their first three Ivy League matches, Penn men's tennis co-captain Andy Kolker hopes to take advantage of the opportunity to ruin the Ivy League Championship hopes of other teams.

"We obviously haven't started the season as we would have liked," Kolker said. "But we're staying positive and looking forward to doing some damage in the remainder of our matches. We can definitely make things interesting for some other teams."

The Quakers (9-7, 0-3 Ivy League) have four matches left and will culminate their road schedule this weekend with matches at No. 42 Brown tomorrow and Yale on Saturday.

"Playing both matches on the road on back to back days is definitely a tough assignment," Kolker said. "But almost all of the guys who will be traveling this upcoming weekend have done it before, so we know what to expect and are prepared for a long, hard-fought weekend of tennis."

The Bears (15-3, 1-0) are looking to defend their Ivy League title under the reigns of first-year head coach Jay Harris.

"Brown has a very tough team," Kolker said. "They won the Ivies last year and look even stronger this year. We are just going to go into that match with nothing to lose and hopefully we can make life difficult for them."

Last year, Penn won the doubles point before falling to the eventual Ivy League champs, 5-2.

The Quakers hope to garner the all-important doubles point once more, but think that could lead to a different result if they do so again.

"I believe we can do the same thing again," sophomore Todd Lecher said. "It will be a battle either way, however, it would be nice to get off to a strong start with that first point and let the momentum carry us into singles play."

Penn hopes to repeat last year's success over the Elis (5-8, 0-1). In a home match, Penn defeated Yale by a narrow 4-3 margin.

"The Yale match will be another hard-fought match," Lecher said. "It seems that every time we play them, it comes down to the last match to decide it all. We like our chances if that's the case."

"Yale is a team we always like playing and like beating even more," Kolker said. "I know we will all be very fired up for that match. We beat them in a close one last year and look to do the same this year."

After being without their top two singles players -- senior Ryan Harwood and sophomore David Lynn -- due to personal reasons last Friday against Princeton, the Quakers anticipate being at full strength this weekend.

Also, with a weekend forecast of unfavorable conditions in the northeast, the Quakers anticipate playing the pair of matches indoors, where they have played all of their home matches thus far.

"We feel very comfortable playing indoors," Lecher said. "And it seems that we will be playing both matches indoors due to the inclement weather conditions."

Overall on this weekend's roadtrip, Penn hopes to seize its chance to end the chances for many of their Ivy League foes.

"Now, our goal is to win as many matches as possible," junior Alex Fritz said. "And we want to start doing that this weekend."

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