Disappointment was the predominant mood of the Penn men's tennis team after the opening weekend of Ivy League play, as the Quakers fell to both Columbia and Cornell.
"We played hard in both matches," Penn coach Mark Riley said. "It's disappointing, we had lots of opportunities that we didn't convert. We had set points in a couple of matches where we have to finish the job and we didn't."
Penn (8-6) opened up its Ivy League season in New York on Friday with a loss to Columbia, 6-1. The Quakers returned to Philadelphia to take on Cornell (14-5) on Sunday and came up short, 5-2.
Over the weekend, singles play stifled the Quakers' chances at victory. Penn managed to win only two out of the 12 singles matches.
In the match with Columbia (7-2), the Quakers dropped the doubles point after losing two of out of the three matches.
The Lions' top tandem of senior Oscar Chow and junior Rohan Saikia topped Penn senior Ryan Harwood and sophomore Todd Lecher, 8-5. In second-seeded doubles, Penn's pair of junior Alex Fritz and sophomore Craig Rubin defeated junior Yoku Kiuchi and freshman James Moore, 8-8, (10-4).
Columbia secured the doubles point as freshman Scott Robbin and sophomore Ricky Butenko defeated sophomore Anthony Pu and freshman Jimmy Fairbanks, 8-4.
In singles play, Fritz was the only Penn athlete to come out with a victory as he defeated junior Alan Bohane, 6-2, 6-4. Penn failed to win a single set in any of the other five singles matches.
However, Harwood put forth a valiant effort against Chow, the nation's 50th ranked player. Chow topped the Penn co-captain after winning the first set tie-break and breaking Harwood's final serve, 7-6, 7-5.
"The only disappointing part was I thought that we should have won the doubles point," Harwood said. "Otherwise, in singles, they played well and earned it."
Sunday's match with Cornell saw Penn mount an early lead, only to see it pass by the wayside. The Quakers went up 2-0 early after they secured the doubles point and Harwood defeated the Big Red's Julian Cheng, 6-2, 6-3, in first-seeded singles play.
However, The Big Red managed to win the next three matches to come within a point of the win.
At that point, the two remaining matches on the court were both close in the third set. However, Cornell freshman Brett McKeon outlasted Fritz in a hard-fought match, 2-6, 7-5, 6-4, to secure the team victory. With the team result already decided, Cornell junior Scott Spencer topped Lecher, 7-5, 3-6, 7-6 (6-4).
Penn will look to rebound from this weekend's play when it takes on Temple today. The Quakers hope to get some other players some match experience and to regain momentum as they resume Ivy League play Friday against Princeton.
"We can get some guys who haven't had the opportunity to play much this year to play," Riley said. "After that, we're going to get ready for Princeton."
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