Senior captain Stephanie Do will play her final match in a Penn uniform on Sunday, as her team continues to search for its first Ivy win of the season.
Credit: Courtesy of Penn AthleticsWith the collegiate tennis regular season coming to a close, Penn women’s tennis has just two matches remaining to right its losing streak and put a positive stamp on the 2013-2014 season.
Still looking for its first win in Ivy League play, coach Sanela Kunovac and the team will travel to New York on Friday to take on No. 37 Columbia before returning home for a match against Cornell to close out the regular season.
The Quakers (7-9, 0-5 Ivy) recently dropped nail-biting 4-3 matches against Dartmouth, Yale, and most recently, a 4-3 loss in the tiebreak to Harvard.
Riding a much different wave of late, No. 37 Columbia (15-3, 4-1) had won 11 straight matches dating back to late February before losing to Yale on Sunday, 5-2. The Lions easily won the last four matches of the streak by the same score of 6-1.
Although Penn lead the all-time series with Columbia, 25-4, the Lions won the last two meetings, winning 4-0 in Philly last season and 6-1 in New York the season prior.
Following Friday’s match, the team will return to Philly and prepare to face Cornell (7-8, 0-5) at the Hamlin Tennis Center. Also winless in the conference, the Big Red are on a five-game losing streak, including four straight 6-1 losses.
The Quakers and Big Red are tied for seventh place in the Ivy League standings. Princeton is currently in first place, followed by Columbia in second and Yale in third.
The Big Red won last season’s match against Penn, 4-3, but Sunday’s match should see two evenly-matched teams both looking to send their seniors out on a positive note.
Penn’s two seniors, Stephanie Do and Jaime Yapp-Shing, will play their final home match in Quakers uniforms on Sunday. A team captain, Do won her singles match at sixth singles in three sets against Harvard. Yapp-Shing fell in straight sets at fourth singles but won while playing with sophomore Sonya Latycheva in doubles play.
Latycheva was the only Penn player to win in singles while playing at No. 3 against Ivy League-leading Princeton.
At No. 1 in doubles, junior Sol Eskenazi and freshman Kana Daniel picked up wins against both Harvard and Princeton. The duo looks to continue their new winning streak after losing to Dartmouth last Saturday.
Eskenazi has won at first singles in her last two matches, handling her Harvard and Dartmouth opponents in straight sets.
Both Friday and Sunday’s matches are scheduled to begin at 2 p.m.
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