W. tennis to send top players to Virginia for ITA Regionals

Four tournaments played, one cancelled due to a hurricane, the fall season coming to a close - but there is no rest for the weary on the women's tennis team.

This weekend four players will represent the Tigers at the ITA Regionals Tournament, the biggest and most competitive event of fall play. The team has been preparing for this tournament in its matches at the Cissie Leary Invitational, the Princeton Invitational, the Columbia Invitational and, most recently, the National Tennis Center Invitational. Now they will face some of their toughest competition of the fall and encounter a myriad of impressive opponents.

The women's fall season traditionally consists of three or four invitational tournaments, culminating in the ITA Regionals, which boasts 128 players from 97 different schools this year. Sophomore Alison Hashmall and freshman Darcy Robertson will represent Princeton in singles and senior co-captains Vanti Bhargava and Alex Kobishyn will compose the doubles team.

Hashmall, the Tigers' number one singles player for the Tigers, has had few opportunities to play this fall as she has been rehabilitating her knee.

"I've been injured most of the fall season and I've been working really hard over the last couple of weeks to get back in shape for regionals," Hashmall said. "I'm going into the tournament optimistic that I can pull off some good wins against some top players. Most matches come down to mental toughness anyway."

Robertson, a rookie on the Princeton team, had one of the strongest singles seasons on the team, going 6-2 in fall play. A native New Yorker, Robertson grew up playing in the New England Region and did not receive much exposure to players from other areas, nor the opportunity to play against some of the top junior players during her own junior career.

"I am psyched to be going to Regionals, especially as a freshman," Robertson said. "It is really exciting to be getting to play against the top girls that will be there. To try and beat girls I've grown up hearing about is really exciting."

If Bhargava and Kobishyn win the regional doubles this weekend, they will progress to the Indoor Nationals. Should Hashmall and/or Robertson reach the finals in singles, they will do the same. The last Princeton player to do so was Kavitha Krishmanurthy '03 in her freshman year.

Upset-minded

"Our players are going [to ITA Regionals] with the belief that they can win it," head coach Louise Gengler said. "They would have to pull off a number of upsets to do so, but we have already had several upset wins this fall."

Both Robertson and Hashmall are confident about their chances.

"My fall season went well and I had a bunch of good matches against top girls," Robertson said. "I am incredibly excited about the spring season and I really think that with our team continuity we could do extremely well."

"So far the season has been great for the team," Hashmall added. "I'd say we're shaping up really well and I think we have the potential to do fantastically against the other Ivies in the spring. We're all getting along fantastically, we're working harder than ever, and we're having fun."

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Traditionally, the men's tennis team would travel to Hanover, N.H., this weekend to compete at Dartmouth in the Big Green Invitational. This season, however, several tournaments were moved up, resulting in an extremely busy fall season for the men's team.

"We have taken the Big Green Invitational at Dartmouth off our schedule," head coach Glenn Michibata explained. "This year, September and October have been incredibly busy for our guys. With midterms this week, it would have been too much to ask of the guys to prepare for another tournament."

Coach Michibata noted that the fall season has been going well, despite the fact that two of the key players, junior Josh Burman and senior Dan Friedman, have been injured and some juggling has occurred amongst the doubles teams. He pointed to senior co-captain Tim Kofol as a true leader on the court in doubles play. Freshmen Sratha Saengsuwarn and Ted Mabrey have also shown promise, with the Kofol/Saengsuwarn team upsetting the number two seeded doubles team from Yale at the ITA Regionals last weekend.

"We need improvement in the area of finishing points in singles matches," Michibata said. "But right now our most pressing need is to get our team healthy."