Gabe Sauerhoff '99 and Rob Simik '99 -- arguably the two best players on the men's tennis team -- knew they would need to take their respective games up a notch this past weekend as they hit the road and visited the Penn Invitational in Philadelphia.
And step it up they did.
Simik opened up his run with a solid straight sets win over Andrers Bjorkholm of Virginia Commonwealth University by scores of 6-4, 6-2.
However, the big serving junior saved his best for his next match -- as he found himself pitted against #2 seed Diago Ayala of Miami University.
In a surprising display of the Big Green's strength, Simik left the Floridian stunned, winning in straight sets, 6-2, 6-1.
Simik finally met defeat in the main draw when he fell to Martin Bentssom of Northwestern University.
"I wasn't expecting much out of this weekend," Simik said, "but when I took the court, everything fell into place. My game really came together and I was able to pull out the crucial points."
Next up, Sauerhoff had just as difficult a draw. Facing Northwestern's Derek Nguyen, Sauerhoff opened with a tight set, pulling it out in a tie-breaker. But after that initial hump, things became easier, and Sauerhoff took the match with a 6-2 second set win.
In the second round, Sauerhoff squared off against Harvard's top recruit, James Blake. In the end, Blake was too much for Sauerhoff, and he lost, 6-1, 6-4.
"I thought I played very well this weekend," Sauerhoff commented. "I was happy that my arm injury did not flare up at all. I was too tentative against Blake in my second match, but I feel with two good weeks of practice, we will be very successful at the Rolex [Tournament]."
In doubles, the two rebounded from a first-round lost to win two matches in the back draw before folding to a pair of Tigers from Princeton.
