Netwomen Triumph Thrice in South

The Radcliffe tennis team went South over spring vacation to escape the Cambridge winter and to play against some of the southern tennis powers.

While the team certainly got the test it was looking for, it also found all sorts of weather: spring in Virginia, snow in the mountains of North Carolina and wind the last half of the week.

The 'Cliffe netwomen played the University of Virginia, ranked third in the South, in 70-degree spring weather last Monday. While the squad lost, 6-3, it was a moral victory of sorts to perform so well in the first outdoors match of the year.

In one of the closest matches of the tour. Radcliffe lost to Mary Baldwin, 5-4, on Tuesday. "Four of the matches were real close," captain Lissa Muscatine said yesterday, "and if we had played them later on in the week, we probably would have won."

The 'Cliffe squad beat Hollins, 8-1, on Wednesday before travelling to Boone, N.C. for a match with Appalachian State. Appalachian State is located a few miles down the road from Beech Mountain, one of the South's best known ski resorts, and on Thursday there was snow covering the slopes and the courts cancelling any tennis for the day.

In a windy conclusion, Radcliffe closed out the Southern swing with a 5-4 win over Davidson and a 7-2 victory over Winthrop.

"We were 15-15 in our singles matches down South but we were 12-3 in doubles," Muscatine said. The Muscatine-Denise Thal duo best a pair from Mary Baldwin that had just defeated the intercollegiate doubles champions from Penn State.

Muscatine also played the number-one spot for Radcliffe on the tour, while Sukie Magraw was number two and Thal was three. "There is really very little difference in the top three for us," Muscatine said. "It is going to turn out that our number one is not going to do too well, but two, three and four should do very well."

Rita Eunaro played at number four in singles. Maude Wood at five and Ann Koufman at six. Funaro played consistently excellent singles as she lost only one of five matches over the week. In one match, she required a mere 44 minutes including warmup to dispatch her opponent, 6-1, 6-0.