Despite heading into this weekend's invitational as the No. 9 seed among 16 teams, the Penn men's tennis team considers itself anything but an underdog.
"The seedings are just a guess where teams fit," Penn coach Mark Riley said about the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Championships in Flushing Meadows, N.Y. "I personally don't feel like we got much respect."
The Quakers enter the weekend with a highly anticipated crop of freshmen and coming off of a rigorous conditioning program. Coupled with their strong showing at the Princeton Invitational last weekend, Penn is heading into the tournament confident and expecting to win.
"We've got a good group of guys always looking for extra, so it's easy to make them" work hard, Riley said.
The extra work and conditioning -- designed to keep players fresh in three-set matches and tiebreakers -- has paid off.
"This is the most conditioning we've done since I've been here," said junior Todd Lecher, who will play both singles and doubles. "We're all in really good shape. We're ready to go."
Standout freshman Mikhail Bekker of Moscow, who reached the singles final of the "B" flight at the Princeton Invitational last week, has been particularly impressive in his first few weeks at Penn.
"Bekker is a great kid," Lecher said. "There are a lot of good guys on this team that have made his transition [from Russia] easier. He's really mature for a 16-year-old."
Riley agreed.
"He's been away from home a lot, and there's no language barrier in tennis. He's got a lot of experience for a freshman," he said.
Freshman Aubry Wand also won a match at the Princeton Invitational in his collegiate debut before eventually dropping his second match in three sets. John Stetson, who did not play last weekend due to a nagging shoulder injury, rounds out the Quakers' freshman lineup.
While it is still early in the year, the team is not downplaying the importance of the tournament, which will be held at the USTA National Tennis Center and is the only team tournament of the fall.
"You go in to win every single match," Lecher said.
Sixteen of the top tennis teams in the east were invited in mid-August by the ECAC Tennis Committee to compete in the tournament, which will have a "team championship" format with three doubles and six singles with repeats.
Among the participants are top seed and defending champion Harvard. Brown, Penn State, Princeton and Cornell are seeded second through fifth.
