In the midst of a rocky season, Penn men’s tennis has not been able to catch a break.
The Quakers dropped conference face-offs to No. 35 Harvard and No. 54 Dartmouth on Saturday and Sunday, respectively, leaving Penn (14-8, 0-5 Ivy) still without an Ancient Eight win entering the season’s final week. The weekend’s play featured numerous close losses at Penn’s expense.
“I’m really proud of my guys,” coach David Geatz said. ”The scoreboard doesn’t always say everything, but the guys went out and fought hard.”
The Quakers began the weekend with a rough Saturday against the Crimson, falling 5-2. Senior captain Jeremy Court was the only Penn singles player to come out victorious, taking down No. 37 Denis Nguyen in three sets.
Penn also won the doubles point by taking two of three matches. First, sophomores Matt Nardella and Marshall Sharp lost 6-3 to Sebastian Beltrame and Jean Thirouin. At the No. 1 spot, Court and freshman Nicholai Westergaard took down a No. 10 doubles team in Nguyen and Brian Yeung 6-4, before juniors Blaine Willenborg and Austin Kaplan broke the tie with a 7-6 victory over the Harvard’s Nicky Hu and Alex Steinroeder.
On Sunday, matters weren’t much better for the Quakers, as the Big Green clinched a win after taking the first match’s four points. The tandem of Willenborg and Kaplan won for the second time on the weekend, 6-2, but Penn lost the other two doubles matches to lose the point.
Court impressed by taking the first set over Dartmouth’s No. 53 Dovydas Sakinis 6-1, but could not capitalize on his early lead, eventually losing in three sets.
The Quakers’ first point came from the racquet of Nardella, who defeated Diego Pedraza in the No. 4 singles spot by a score of 6-3, 7-6. The second came from freshman Josh Pompan, who came back from match point down at 5-4 in the third set to best Ciro Riccardi.
Geatz disclosed that Pompan, who appeared to be in apparent pain after winning the last match to finish on Sunday, was experiencing a full-body cramp during the later stages of the match.
“He couldn’t have played another point,” Geatz said. “I think he was done.”
Despite the underwhelming results in Ivy play this season, Geatz believes in the talent of his team.
“We had arguably one of the best teams that Penn has ever had here,” Geatz said. “But I think, with any team in any sport, you take your top two guys out of the lineup, there’s a big difference.”
The team was hit hard by the losses of its top two singles players, freshman Nicolas Podesta and junior Vim De Alwis. Podesta logged an 8-2 record as the No. 1 singles player, and De Alwis went 1-6 in the top spot before a meniscus injury.
De Alwis suffered his injury during a 5-2 victory over Radford on March 7. At that time, the Quakers had gotten off to a fast start, winning 10 of their first 11. Since then, Penn has gone 4-7, including five consecutive Ivy losses in the five most recent contests.
After this weekend’s games, the Red and Blue are in the home stretch of the spring season, with three contests in this final week. On Wednesday, the Quakers take on St. John’s, a game that was rescheduled from an earlier date.
Over the weekend, Penn will then complete Ivy League play at home against Cornell on Friday before traveling to Columbia on Sunday.
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