After losing to No. 32-ranked Florida International on Feb. 4, the women’s tennis team has been on a three-match winning streak, including wins over two ranked opponents in Rice on Feb. 16, and then-No. 40 SMU on Sunday. The Wolfpack will be competing against its third ranked opponent in the last two weeks with No. 34 South Carolina at noon tomorrow at the J.M. Isenhour Tennis Center.
During practice this week, the team has been working on doubles play, something which coach Hans Olsen said the team has been good at this season.
“Doubles is something that has been working for us a lot,” Olsen said. “We’ve been winning the doubles, so we’ve been taking something good, and we’re going to see if we can make it into something better.”
Freshman Berkeley Brock also talked about what was done in practice.
“Lots of drills, lots of like practice sets and stuff like that,” Brock said. “I think that we’ve gotten a lot better at that too.”
This is Brock’s first year with the Pack. She said her competition has been very aggressive, and it has been a growing experience.
“I’ve had a lot of really tough matches, but I’ve grown a lot from it,” she said. “I feel like I’m a much better player then when I first got here.”
Improvement has not only come from Brock, but from the team as a whole. For Olsen, each week the team has improved, especially on match days.
“When we were in Texas this past weekend, we had good strong wins over Rice and SMU, and the team really [came] together with a team competitive intensity where the wins were coming, because everybody was contributing on the match day,” Olsen said. “I feel like match day is where this team really shows there A-level of intensity, motivation, attitude. They’re really loving the match day. And I’m seeing with every week improving the little things that make them just that much more competitively tough on the important points.”
Despite the improvements, the team’s ranking has fallen to No. 40, being ranked as high as No. 32 at the begining of the semester. Freshman Kate Green summed it up in one word what had to be done to bring up the team’s rank.
“Winning, winning,” Green said.
Olsen said he doesn’t pay attention to the rankings, he’s more worried about the team’s performance.
“We’ve been getting stronger every week, and I think that any team that plays against us is going to have their hands full,” he said. “We’ll just focus on how we want to perform, and if we do that, I’ll feel comfortable letting the rankings fall where they may.”