The Penn State women's tennis team will look to build on its performance at last weekend's OSU/Prince Cup when it splits up and travels to Philadelphia for the Cissy Leary Invite and College Park, Md., for the Maryland Invitational this weekend.

The entire team, except for Sarah Spence and Lindsay Downing, will compete against players from a variety of schools such as Texas A&M, Princeton, Old Dominion, Yale and host school University of Pennsylvania at the Cissy Leary Invite.

Penn State women's tennis coach Buffy Baker said her decision to take Downing and Spence to Maryland was an issue of seniority, as she will travel with the two younger players to College Park, where they will compete against players from American University, West Virginia and Syracuse. Assistant coaches Ben Gabler and Rebecca Ho will accompany the rest of the team to Philadelphia.

"I'd like to see them keep settling in and see how they recover from last weekend," Baker said. "They played a lot of matches and I know they're still physically and mentally drained."

The players traveling to Philadelphia will face tough competition, as Baker said that teams like Penn, Texas A&M and Old Dominion are strong every year, and her players will be competing against some of the very best in the nation.

"This should be great regional competition for us, and help in the future because our region is so strong," Baker said.

Despite the short week of practice, the players said they have been working on conditioning and doubles drills this week, and are anxious to get back out on the court.

"Of course we're tired, but we're ready to go," said junior Leigh Ann Merryman. "It's the competition that drives us."

The team looks to build on its performance last weekend in Columbus, when Judy Wang and Megan Marton finished second in the doubles tournament, while Maaria Husain and Lindsay Downing made it to the quarterfinals.

"I think we will be less nervous because we have the Ohio State tournament behind us," Wang said, adding that she also wants to improve her singles play. "I want to work on staying aggressive and closing out my points at the net."

Wang and Marton will be rewarded for their impressive play, as they will again compete together in doubles competition in Philadelphia. Baker said she will continue to mix and match the other doubles combinations, looking for players that mesh well together.