Radcliffe Tennis Team Finishes Third

The top Radcliffe doubles team of Lissa Muscatine and Denise Thal was ceeded second in last weekend's Seven Sisters (and Ivy) Tournament held at Vassar, making it look like a repeat of last year's tournament, which ended with a showdown with Princeton's number one team in the finals.

This year everything went as expected for the first couple of rounds, but in the semifinals the duo met a tough Princeton number two team of Lynn McClanahan and Terry Carp and wound up losing the match, 6-4, 6-4.

The Radcliffe team lost a close first set and went ahead, 4-1, in the second set of the early morning contest (8:30 a.m.), but the Princeton duo charged back to take the set and the match.

"We weren't in the match." Muscatine said, "We made stupid mistakes on crucial points."

The finals of the doubles was all Princeton with the number one team of Louise Gengler and Mo Curran emerging victorious. The finals of the singles competition, though, was all Yale as the top-seeded Yalie Lisa Rosenblum defeated the second seed for the Elis, Sue Graham. To reach the finals. Graham had to beat the highly regarded number one for Princeton, Linda Rice.

Tournament rules allowed each school to bring two singles players and two doubles teams. Radcliffe brought only one singles player. Ingrid Sarapuu, who by the luck of the draw played Princeton's number four seed. Julic Kirkham, in the opening round. Sarapuu lost the first set 6-0 to Kirkham before coming back to take the first gwo games of the second set. Sarapuu then lost six straight games to lose the set, 6-2. The other Radcliffe doubles team made up of Maud Wood and Ann Koufman lost in the quarterfinals of the doubles competition.

Muscatine and Thal charged through the opening rounds of competition as they received a bye in the first round, beat a Dartmouth pair, 6-1, 6-4. in the second round and demolished a fairly good Brown team, 6-1, 6-2. in the quarterfinals.

"I think our play typified the team's play this season." Muscatine said. "No one played their best, except maybe in sports. It wasn't like last year when there was a high intensity of competition. No one played up to the same level."

Boks Jox Next

Overall the team finished third in the tournament behind Princeton and Yale.

The last unofficial match of the schedule for Radcliffe will be this Sunday against Boks Jox which is led by the doubles team of President Bok and Dr. Chase Peterson, a former Harvard tennis star.