This weekend in Pacific Palisades, Calif., a pair of members of the Penn women’s tennis team will aim to show the nation just how far their program has come.
Juniors Sanela Kunovac and Nicole Ptak have been invited to participate in the qualifying rounds of the Riviera/ITA All-American Championships at the Riviera Tennis Club.
Penn coach Michael Dowd believes that the number of Penn entrants in the qualifying round will give his team more respect from around the country.
“This is the [largest] number of players we’ve gotten [in] the qualifying rounds,” Dowd said. “We have the highest regional ranking we’ve had, and people are starting to take notice.”
Ptak and Kunovac, both first- time invites to the prestigious national singles event, hope to join teammate Alice Pirsu—who is currently 8-1 in singles play, her one loss coming in last weekend’s final of the Cissie Leary Memorial Tournament—in the main draw of the event, which gets underway the following weekend.
Last season, Pirsu was not put in the main draw and had to go through the rigorous qualifying process that requires players to win six matches for entry into the final draw. She came up two wins shy of qualifying.
“Alice won four matches last year in qualifying,” Dowd said. “But it is just so hard for a player to do.”
Standing in the way of Kunovac and Ptak’s respective qualifying bids are some of the nation’s elite players. Kunovac will face Uzma Kahn of UC-Santa Barbara. Kahn finished last year ranked No. 20 in the West.
“Uzma Kahn was the top player at Arizona before she transferred,” Dowd said. “I know she is at a high level of tennis.”
Ptak will also run into a West Coast foe when she plays No. 24 Monika Horvath.
Ptak, who finished last season with a 22-11 record, received second team All-Ivy honors for the second consecutive year. Dowd is familiar with her opponent, Horvath, as his Quakers defeated Pepperdine and Horvath in the 2000 NCAA Tournament.
“She’s a very scrappy player,” Dowd said. “We beat Monika Horvath in a very crucial match to stay alive in the match against Pepperdine.”
At the Cissie Memorial tourney last weekend, Ptak pieced together two wins before falling in the round of 16.
Kunovac, the Quakers No. 2 singles player, is looking to match the success she enjoyed her freshman year, when she was named Ivy League Player of the Year. Despite being hampered by an elbow injury, Kunovac had a strong sophomore campaign as well, earning first team All-Ivy honors in doubles, as well as finishing the year ranked No. 30 in the East.
“Sanela seems to be over her injury,” Dowd said. “She is playing as well as I’ve seen her play in a year.”
As for Kunovac and Pirsu’s chances of making it into the final draw, Dowd was cautiously optimistic.
“It would be a heck of a feat to make it in,” Dowd said. “Playing that many matches in a row is going to take a lot of physical effort. But Sanela and Nikki have the talent and drive to do it.”
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