Tempers flare up again at Levy

After beating Drexel's Omar Laalej last season, Penn's Jonathan Boym neglected to shake his opponent's hand. Drexel coach Tricia Udicious called the episode "embarrassing," and then-Quakers' coach Mark Riley ultimately forced Boym to return to the court and conform to tennis etiquette.

The Dragons returned to the Levy Tennis Pavilion on Saturday, losing 5-2 against the Quakers. And with three Quakers suffering from injury and illness - including one case of scarlet fever - Boym was bumped up to the No. 1 spot for a rematch with Laalej.

Boym prevailed again, this time winning in a tie break (11-9) after splitting the first two sets 3-6, 6-2.

But two courts away, Boym's teammate Alex Vasin visibly lost his cool, which almost extended Boym's match.

After a 4-6, 6-7 loss to Nicholas Bacchus, Vasin broke his racquet in half and stormed out of the Levy Tennis Pavilion while teammate Justin Fox tried to restrain him.

"Alex Vasin is an excellent tennis player," Fox said. "He's just a little mentally weak."

According to NCAA tennis rules, unsportsmanlike conduct, such as cursing or throwing a racket, results in an automatic loss of one point for a first offense. When such conduct occurs after a match is finished, the penalty is enforced on the highest-seeded match still in progress.

And with Vasin's explosion occurring almost exactly as Boym wrapped up his 11-9 tiebreaker win, the Quakers avoided penalization by mere seconds.

According to DeVore, the incident Saturday was not the first for Vasin, who has a history of on-court temper issues.

"It's not uncommon for tennis players to have anger management problems, but that was certainly unacceptable," DeVore said.

Luckily for the Quakers, Vasin's loss of self control did not hurt them on Saturday. Though the Quakers looked flat and failed to match Drexel's intensity level at the outset, they went on to win five of six singles matches for the victory.

After Penn lost two of three doubles matches , DeVore gave his team a verbal tongue-lashing in the locker room.

"Pretty much he just said this is a perfect example of why you can never underestimate anyone, whether it's in tennis or in life," said Fox, who dispatched Drexel's Joe Koebele 6-2, 6-1 in singles after he and partner Jeffrey Karsh failed to comeback in a 9-7 doubles loss.

"He didn't go crazy, but he really gave us a strong, kind of tense talk, and we went out there and did our job."

Considering the circumstances, the Quakers were relieved that their let-down occurred early in the season and that they came away with a victory.

"We're all getting our cobwebs off from our last matches in October," Fox said. "By the time we play Princeton, there aren't going to be any mistakes."

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