This weekend marks the beginning of the fall season for the Penn State women's tennis team at the University of Pennsylvania's Cissy Leary Invitational in Philadelphia.

Beginning this morning and continuing Saturday and Sunday, the Nittany Lions will face teams from across the eastern region and as far away as the University of Arizona.

Penn State women's tennis coach Buffy Baker stressed the importance of using this weekend's tournament to gain experience in the eastern region.

"We are located in the eastern region, which means if we try to get a berth in the NCAAs, we go through the eastern region unless we win our conference," Baker said.

"It is very important to us to get as much eastern exposure as we can, so this is a great tournament for that."

Since the Lions managed a 2-8 Big Ten record last season, a strong showing in the eastern region could be vital to any NCAA tournament hopes they have.

The tournament will also feature players from Wisconsin, giving Penn State an early look at Big Ten competition.

"Wisconsin's top two players will be there. Their top player is, I'd say, probably one of the top 50 players in the country," Baker said, referring to Caitlin Burke who is ranked No. 32 in the nation.

This tournament will not match schools against each other as teams; instead all players will be placed into one draw where anyone could play anyone else.

It will also be the first opportunity for Baker to assess the progress of her very young team, which returns no seniors from last year's squad that struggled through an 8-13 overall record. Baker also plans to use the early tournaments of the season to experiment with different combinations of doubles teams.

"Our team is so young, there's no doubt that we'll be trying different combinations," Baker said.

The three doubles teams Baker plans to use this weekend will match sophomore Jenny Shular with Abraham, junior Katelyn BeVard with freshman Lauren Holzberg, and junior Andreea Niculescu with freshman Leyla Morzan.

With no seniors, leadership responsibilities will fall to the sophomores and juniors on the team to help prepare the team's four freshmen for the Big Ten season.

With a young team, there is a feeling that the freshmen are anxious about their first tournament in college, but Abraham was quick to dismiss these feelings as normal.

"Anxiety has nothing to do with their performance. Any freshmen coming in would not know what to expect," Abraham said.

With only a few weeks of team practice to draw on, the Lions will look to use the Cissy Leary Invitational to find out how much progress has really been made since last season.

"I think we're ready. I think if you asked us a week ago, it would have been a different answer, but things are starting to come together," Shular said.