Seniors Justin Gordon, Todd Lecher, Justin Lavner, David Lynn, Anthony Pu and Craig Rubin experienced a disappointing conclusion to their final season with the Penn men's tennis team.
On the final weekend of the Ivy League season, the Quakers dropped matches to Cornell, 4-3, and Columbia, 5-2.
On Friday afternoon, Penn (14-8, 2-5 Ivy) trailed Cornell (11-10, 3-4) 3-2 with two matches remaining. At No. 4 singles, Lecher did his part by upending the Big Red's Dan Brous, 7-5, 6-4, in an emotional victory. With the match even, the attention, just like the previous weekend's Harvard match, shifted to freshman Joseph Lok's match at No. 6 singles.
Lok dominated early on with a 6-1 first set victory over fellow California native Tongle Yu. However, he dropped a tight second set, 7-6. Lok fought cramps in the third set, and was broken by Yu late in the set, resulting in a 6-4 third set loss and clinching the match for Cornell.
The Quakers opened their date with the Big Red by capturing the doubles point thanks to a comeback by Lecher and Brandon O'Gara over Brous and Charn Bak. Penn trailed 6-3, but won five straight games to take the match, 8-6, at No. 2 doubles.
Penn's other doubles victory came at No. 3 where Pu teamed with Lok for the first time this season, and won 8-4 over Brett McKeon and Rory Heggie.
"I think we played pretty well," Pu said. "We both were up together and if we got down, one person was able to encourage the other. So we had a good balance."
At No.1 doubles, Lynn and Mikhail Bekker lost the first seven games of their match with Nick Brunner and Josh Raff before winning four games to post a more respectable 8-4 loss.
Bekker recovered quickly to win his No.1 singles match, 7-6, 6-2, over McKeon.
Unfortunately for Penn, it would drop four of the next five singles matches, sealing its fate.
Penn closed out their season in New York with a match against Columbia (16-3, 6-1). The Lions are currently in second place in the Ivy League.
Columbia opened the match by sweeping all three doubles matches to capture the doubles point.
Lynn playing in his final collegiate match fell at No.1 singles to Akshay Rao by a 7-5, 6-1 score.
Lecher moved up to No. 3 singles in his final match, and lost 6-4, 6-1 to Rajeev Emany. He finished the season by winning twelve of his last fourteen matches.
Bekker closed out his sophomore season at No. 2 singles with a relatively easy 6-4, 6-1 victory over Jimmy Moore. At No.4 singles, Tobias won the first set 6-4 before dropping the second set 6-2 and losing the final set 6-4.
The Quakers finished the Ivy League season with a 2-5 record, winning only one more match than last year's squad, which did not feature any seniors. Penn, which lost four Ancient Eight matches by a 4-3 score, cannot finish higher than a tie for sixth place in the league.
"It is a big deal, this being the last competitive match I'll play for forever," Pu reminisced about the season's culmination. "I like the team that I'm leaving so it feels good."
