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Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Tiger Tennis Teams Begin Ivy League Play With Archrival Penn
March 30, 2007 | Men's Tennis, Women's Tennis
The Princeton men's and women's tennis teams are each nationally ranked. Each team has played a non-conference schedule filled with other nationally-ranked teams. But when Ivy League play begins Saturday afternoon for both Glenn Michibata's men's team and Kathy Sell's women's team, none of those numbers will really mean all that much.
The men will host Penn at 2 p.m. at the Lenz Tennis Center, while the women visit Penn's Lott Courts for a noon match, in the first of seven league matches for each team over the next four weekends that will determine a league champion and an NCAA tournament berth.
Michibata's men's tennis team is ranked No. 65 in this week's FILA Collegiate Rankings and has been in the rankings each of the last seven weeks. The Tigers enter Ivy League play with a 7-4 overall record in the spring. All four of the defeats have come at the hands of fellow ranked teams, but so have two of the seven victories (against No. 67 Central Florida and No. 72 Utah).
The Tigers also have a nationally-ranked doubles team in sophomores Alex Vuckovic and Peter Capkovic. The duo is currently ranked No. 60 in the collegiate doubles rankings and has a 7-1 record this spring as Princeton's No. 2 doubles team.
Capkovic, Princeton's No. 1 singles player, will also renew a rivalry with Penn No. 1 Jason Pinsky. The two played on consecutive weekends in the fall, with Pinsky defeating Capkovic in the "A" bracket final at Princeton's Farnsworth Invitational and Capkovic winning in a deciding proset at the ECAC Division I team championship the next weekend.
Penn, which shared the Ivy League championship with Brown a year ago, is 6-11 this spring, but 12 of its 17 matches have come against ranked teams, including eight matches against teams currently in the national top 25.
Sell's women's team has been ranked as high as No. 50 in the FILA rankings this spring; the Tigers currently sit at No. 72. Princeton is 8-5 on the spring heading into Saturday's match in Philadelphia after a 5-2 victory against Temple Thursday night in Jadwin Gym.
Freshmen occupy three of the six spots in Princeton's usual singles lineup, led by Melissa Saiontz at the No. 1 spot. The Tigers have been strong at the top of their singles lineup this spring, with Saiontz and Ivana King combining for nine wins in 13 matches at the No. 1 spot and King contributing a team-high seven wins at the No. 2 position.
The doubles pairing of senior Laura Trimble and sophomore Kristen Scott has also paid dividends for the Tigers in recent matches. Playing at the No. 3 spot, that duo has won four of its five matches this spring.
Princeton got wins in both singles and doubles from King in its 5-2 victory over Temple Thursday in its final non-conference match. She lost just three games in a win at No. 2 singles and joined freshman Sarah Huah for an 8-3 win at No. 1 doubles.
The Penn women are ranked No. 57 in this week's FILA rankings. The Quakers have a 10-4 record and feature a nationally-ranked player in freshman Kate Kosminskaya, who plays at the No. 1 singles spot.
Three Ivy League schools (Brown, Princeton and Cornell) are nationally-ranked on the men's side heading into the Ivy League season. On the women's side, four league schools (Penn, Dartmouth, Princeton and Cornell) are currently nationally ranked.