Penn State players will try to up their rankings this weekend before the spring season arrives.

The Penn State men's tennis team attends the ITA Regional Championships in Philadelphia starting today and continuing throughout the weekend.

This is more of an individual tournament, and six players will be attending to represent Penn State tennis. Penn State was awarded a maximum of six players for competing well and getting into the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Semifinals.

The tournament format is a first round consolation match with the winners continuing to the next day. If they lose after that, they are out. If the team or an individual does well during the tournament, he may play all the way up until next Tuesday when the championship match will be held.

"We hope to still be in the tournament till Tuesday," sophomore Adam Slagter said.

Penn State goes into the tournament with four seeded singles players out of the six. But the competition will be tough. Teams such as Harvard and Princeton are sending their best players to compete and none of them want to let their team down.

Last year, senior Mark Barry was beaten in the finals by an opponent from Yale. Although he did not make it to the championships, he received the Northeast Division I, ITA Player to Watch Award.

There will be six singles matches and three doubles team matches for a maximum of nine points. The players will play six best-of-three set singles matches followed by three eight-game doubles matches and a tie-breaker if necessary at eight-all.

If any Penn State individual or doubles team makes it to the final round, they automatically qualify for the ITA National Indoors held in November.

"I expect at least one of the doubles teams to do very well, if not all three," junior Michael James said.