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It may still be cold out, but Penn men’s tennis is coming home for the spring season.
On Saturday, the Quakers will continue their 2017 campaign with a doubleheader against two very familiar programs.
There were mixed results for Penn men's tennis in the opening weekend of its spring season, as the Red and Blue kicked off the year down in the Volunteer State with a win over Middle Tennessee State and a sweep at the hands of Vanderbilt.
While many of us look forward to a weekend brimming with what we’d contend are some pretty ambitious party plans, the Red and Blue men’s tennis squad has something bigger and a bit more impactful in their scopes: a weekend-long, tension-packed double matchup in Tennessee.
Sometimes the fight means more than the win. And, in the 20th edition of the Cissie Leary Memorial Invitational, the Quakers endured extraordinary battles throughout the weekend.
On Sunday, play at the Hecht tennis center concluded at Penn’s annual home tournament, commemorating the late Cissie Leary, who served as the women's tennis coach at Penn from 1977-1996.
What do you do when you can’t play the sport you love? Turn your fighting energy towards a different arena: the business world.
On a hiatus from the game of tennis, 29 year-old Maria Sharapova has chosen to attend Harvard Business School for a two-week summer program.
Mostly unnoticed during the comeback and in the post match celebration, however, were the chants his teammates were belting out.
They weren’t in English.
Led by senior Ismael Lahlou, the chants for Pompan, the hero of the match, were in Arabic.
Penn Athletics has a variety of varsity sports teams, but it also hosts a wealth of club sports. These club teams can even be surprisingly successful — the men’s club basketball team, for instance, had a record-breaking year.
But for the best club athletes, just how easy is it — and how often does it occur — to move up to the varsity level?
The latter question is easier to answer.
Coming in hot having won three straight conference matches and with the Ivy League title on the line, it made for a competitive weekend for Penn women's tennis.
After jumping up 22 spots in the ITA Rankings from 74 to 52 after defeating Harvard and Dartmouth last weekend, the Quakers split their final Ivy doubleheader, falling to No. 63 Cornell on Friday, 5-2, at home before rebounding the season finale in New York against No. 34 Columbia, 4-3.
On Friday against Cornell, the Big Red took an early lead, claiming the first four points.
The slide continues.
After opening up Ivy play with two key wins over Yale and Brown at the beginning of the month, Penn men's tennis has failed to find similar success in four conference matches.
Coming off its first Ivy League win of the season last weekend, Penn women’s tennis hoped to build on that confidence as two ranked opponents, Harvard and Dartmouth, arrived in Philadelphia.
With a 4-3 win over Harvard and a 5-2 victory against Dartmouth, the Quakers (10-7, 3-2 Ivy) did just that.
This was no country club tennis match.
In a frenzied atmosphere at the Hecht Tennis Center on Sunday, Penn men’s tennis took on Brown to complete their opening weekend of Ivy League play.
As spring progresses and the plants begin to blossom, Penn tennis expects to see a lot of Ivy. From this point forward, all of its remaining scheduled games are against conference foes.
While most of Penn’s campus was rejoicing over a beautiful spring weekend, Penn women’s tennis headed to Princeton, N.J., with the hopes of doing something they have failed to do since 2008: Beat the Tigers.
When the Quakers face St. John’s this Saturday, they will do so with the same mentality if they were pitted against Ivy league rivals such as Harvard or Dartmouth.
A trip to the Wild West proved to be just that – wild.
With five teams on the docket – four of which were ITA ranked – the Quakers ventured to Colorado and California where they played out a very busy spring break schedule.
Their time in the sun, however, resulted in few bright spots as the Red and Blue fell to all of their ranked opponents.
Although they’ll be under the sun, there will be no break for Penn women’s tennis over the next week.
The Quakers will be heading to Texas for four matches against tough opponents, such as UT-Arlington and UT-Austin, spanning the week of spring break.