W. Tennis falls in season openers

This past Friday, the Penn women's tennis team jumpstarted its season by taking on No. 4 Duke at the Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center in Raleigh-Durham, N.C. Penn (0-2) finished the day with a 6-1 loss to the Blue Devils -- the lone Penn victor was junior Alice Pirsu. Ranked No. 14 in the nation, Pirsu defeated No. 15 Amanda Johnson in straight sets,6-4, 6-4. "I went into the match trying to do my best. The most important thing was to get a good match in and prepare myself for the next matches to come," Pirsu said. Although Pirsu was the lone winner of the day, the Penn players felt that the loss to Duke was more of a good starting experience for the season than a defeat. The Penn women had a mere week and a half to practice for the match against Duke, since Ivy League rules prevent teams from practicing any earlier before the start of the season. "We know we can compete and play with them, and after the match was over, we knew we were close with how close our sets were," Penn captain Sanela Kunovac said. "We're looking forward to getting physically fitter to be as good as we can. It just looked like they played more and were on top of the ball more." Kunovac played a close three- set match against Julia Smith of Duke, falling, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3. Other results included Nicole Ptak's loss to No. 65 Julie DeRoo, 6-3, 6-0, Raluca Ciochina's loss to Katie Granson, 7-5, 6-1, Shelah Chao's loss to Hillary Adams (4-6, 7-5, 6-0), and Caroline Stanislawski's loss to Prim Siripipat (7-5, 6-1). All of the Penn's doubles teams lost as well. No. 11 Johnson and DeRoo defeated No. 14 Pirsu and Chao, 8-3, No. 13 Kelly McCain and Adams defeated Ciochina and Ciulei 8-1, and Smith and Granson defeated Ptak and Stanislawski (8-5). On Saturday, the Quakers were blitzed by No. 8 Vanderbilt, 7-0. The Quakers will now prepare to face the Nittany Lions next week at Penn State on Friday, Feb. 7.

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