W. Tennis | If Quakers win, Sedaka's buying

You'll have to forgive Lauren Sadaka for feeling a little long in the tooth.

She is, after all, the only member of the Penn women's tennis team who can legally drink.

Indeed, with her squad about to open its fall campaign at this weekend's Princeton Invitational, Sadaka - the Quakers' lone senior on a roster of nine - has spent the season's early stages honing her skills as elder stateswoman.

"It's been weird," she said. "Last year, we had four seniors, and I was the one junior. It's really exciting to be captain, though. It feels different, but I'm getting a little used to it."

Her first true task begins this weekend, when Penn, Virginia Tech and SUNY-Buffalo converge on New Jersey for a round-robin tournament hosted by the Quakers' Ancient Eight foe.

Just a handful of days into the preseason regimen, head coach Mike Dowd said Sadaka has already helped put some extra spring in the team's collective step.

"We've had a great first three days of practice, the best first three days I can remember," he said. "You can attribute a lot of that to Lauren's leadership."

Still, Sadaka - who has posted an 11-0 mark in Ivy play over the past two years - isn't the only member of the Quakers being relied upon to fill the void left by the four departing seniors.

"Alexa Ely's hitting a very good ball," Dowd said of the sophomore, who sported a 6-3 record last season playing Nos. 5 and 6 singles. "She's tightened up her volleys. I'm really expecting a lot out of her this year."

Sadaka is also looking to Ely, along with fellow sophomore Vidya Dabir, to take on leadership roles in their own right.

"Year older, year wiser," she said of the duo. "They know the ins and outs of Penn tennis now, so they'll work hard and help show the freshmen."

Of course, the squad also has last season's premier player around to show the rookies how it's done. After earning Ivy League Player of the Year honors as a freshman, junior Ekaterina Kosminskaya went 16-8 playing No. 1 singles in 2007-08.

The Moscow native was also recently ranked No. 99 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's preseason top 100, good for third-highest in the Ivy League.

"She's arguably the best player in the league," Dowd said. "A force to be reckoned with on the national level."

For this weekend - and the spring, for that matter - mere dominance over the northeast should give Sadaka & Co. cause to raise a glass.

Of Gatorade, that is.

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