Trip to NCAAs for W. tennis unexpectedly cut short by Duke

The Penn women's tennis team's second-ever appearance in the NCAA Tournament lasted exactly as long as last season's first visit -- two matches.

After wiping out Richmond, 4-0, in the first round, the Quakers were dealt an equally handy defeat of their own, falling in the round of 32 to No. 4 Duke by the same 4-0 score.

Last season, Penn upset Pepperdine before being defeated by Baylor in the second round.

"Everything worked out perfectly against Richmond," Penn sophomore captain Sanela Kunovac said. "From doubles to singles, it couldn't have gone better.

"Duke was just a little bit tougher than we were."

Tough only begins to describe the top-five Blue Devils in their effort against Penn (15-6) on Saturday May 11 in Raleigh, N.C.

While the Quakers headed into the second round match believing that they had an apparent advantage in doubles, that notion was quickly dismissed after Duke captured two doubles' matches to earn the contest's first point.

It was a shock from which Penn's upset dreams would not recover.

"We heard that Duke wasn't that solid in doubles," Kunovac said. "We thought we could get a jump start on them.

"But Duke came out firing."

And the Duke blitzkrieg, which won two convincing victories in doubles, kept right on firing through singles' play.

Penn sophomore Rachel Shweky was the first to fall. Shweky lost, 6-0, 6-0, as the No. 6 singles player to Duke's Hillary Adams.

Duke's next singles point came at No.3, in nearly the same dominating fashion. Duke's Ioana Plesu crushed sophomore Nicole Ptak, 6-0, 6-1.

The match and the Red and Blue's season ended when the Quakers' No.5 freshman Shelah Chao succumbed to Katie Granson, 6-3, 6-1.

"Duke didn't take us for granted," Kunovac said. "You would think that a team like Duke would think, 'Ivy League school,' and would just think they had to go through the motions against us.

"But they didn't and just played a great match."

Despite the Blue Devils' formidability, it was a match that the Quakers' felt as if they had been given a few more fortuitous bounces that they could have won.

At the time that the match was stopped, Penn was within striking distance in each of the three singles matches that had yet to be completed. No. 1 sophomore Alice Pirsu and No. 2 Kunovac had each split the first two sets of their matches, and No. 4 junior Raluca Ciulei was rallying after dropping the first set.

If another match had been close, the outcome may have been different, according to Penn.

"Alice and Raluca were right in their matches when the match was called," Kunovac said. "I was in the third set and feel I would've won the match. All we needed was one more and we could've won it."

Another factor that played into the Quakers' struggles against Duke was what Kunovac called a "lack of physical shape." Mentally, the upstart Red and Blue seemed to have themselves prepared for the challenge, but it was their bodies that failed them.

"I think their team -- one through six -- were all in great tennis shape," Kunovac said. "Some on our team started well, but physically just couldn't take it. I think if we had been more fit than we were, the outcome would've been closer."

The outcome was far from close in Penn's first round match, as the favored Quakers held court in a 4-0 victory over Richmond.

After capturing the doubles' point with a pair of 8-4 victories at first and second doubles, Penn continued to smother the Spiders in singles play. Pirsu and Chao won straight set victories and Ciulei grabbed the Quakers' fourth point with a two-set win of her own.

"We played some great tennis," Penn coach Michael Dowd said. "And just dominated Richmond."

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