Eugen Brazdil will join the Quakers this year, after spending last  
year at UCLA. The Bruins, of course, are a traditional tennis power
and have won 16 NCAA team championships (trailing only USC and
Stanford, with 17 each). This past year, UCLA lost in the NCAA
semifinal round to Ohio State.

 Brazdil -- who will have three years of eligibility at Penn -- joins an
incoming class of five players that was ranked 21st in the nation by
the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA)-endorsed website
TennisRecruiting.net.

 “We are very excited to be adding Eugen to our team for the
upcoming season,” said Penn head coach Nik DeVore, who recently
completed his second season with the Quakers. “UCLA is one of the
premiere tennis programs in the country, so for a player of Eugen's
caliber to be transferring to Penn says a lot about our institution.
Eugen has long looked up to the Ivy schools and is really looking
forward to attending one of the best academic schools in the country
while helping our program challenge for an Ivy League title.

 “Eugen has a great all-court game and is very accomplished at the
international level in both singles and doubles. He will no doubt bring
a lot to our program.”

 Before attending UCLA, Brazdil was a three-time national singles
champion and two-time national doubles champion in his native
country of Slovakia. He was ranked in the top 25 in Europe and as
high as #50 in the ITF Junior World rankings. Brazdil competed in
the Wimbledon Junior Championships and French Open Juniors, and
captured seven ITF Doubles titles throughout his junior career. His
ITF doubles record was an outstanding 61-30 overall.

 As a freshman at UCLA, Brazdil went 8-5 in singles and 8-5 in
doubles. His highlights included victories over Stanford #5 Greg
Hirshman, and national champion USC's Abdullah Magdas, who
played as high as #3 singles for the Trojans and was ranked 65th
in the ITA national singles rankings. Brazdil was also a finalist at
the Pac-10 Flight B Singles Championship.

 In doubles play, Brazdil made the Flight A final at the Pac-10
Championships, defeating USC's Nguyen/Magdas (who were
ranked 34th in the nation) before falling 7-6 in the third set of
the final to Stanford's top team of Klahn/Thacher (28th in the
ITA national doubles rankings).

 Penn -- which won Ivy League titles in both 2006 and 2007 --
will now add six newcomers to a roster that includes seven
returning letterwinners from 2008-09. The returnees are
headlined by Hicham Laalej, who was first-team All-Ivy in
singles as a junior this past season.