Friday, January 30, 2009
The Jayhawk tennis team will begin the spring season with a trio of matches this weekend at First Serve Tennis in Lawrence.
At 11 a.m. Saturday the players will confront Texas-El Paso, a squad KU has not played since 1987. After concluding the fall season in October, Kansas has had plenty of time to prepare.
“We had conditioning practice when we went home. We ran a lot and practiced,” junior Kunigunda “Kuni” Dorn said. “So we will be ready for these three matches.”
Exactly twenty-four hours after the start of the match against UTEP, Kansas will occupy the court opposite Drake University, from Des Moines, Iowa. The Jayhawks pounded the Bulldogs 4-1 in dual match play in 2007, but unlike the Jayhawks who have four freshmen this year, the Bulldogs have ten returning letter-winners. Kansas coach Amy Hall-Holt remains pragmatic.
“The freshmen right now have no concept of what the spring consists of, except for what we’ve told them about,” she said. “So they’re just going in like ‘I just gotta play and win.’ They are still in individual mode.”
The spring tennis season is played using a dual match system in which the scoring is team-based, as opposed to the fall where the players compete individually in tournaments. The format is squad versus squad instead of athlete versus athlete.
“It’s a good weekend to start off, to get those freshmen in. When we see three teams in one weekend, it is really tough. You usually don’t play three matches in a weekend. We are getting them out there to see what they need to do and what we’re talking about,” Hall-Holt said.
Kansas’ top fall singles player, sophomore Maria Martinez, who finished 7-3, said that “the freshmen are in good shape. The spring is different, but they’ll get used to it.”
The atypical weekend concludes across the net from Saint Louis University at 4 p.m. Sunday. The Jayhawks shut out the Billikens 7-0 in February last year; Edina Horvath, Budapest, Hungary, senior, led the swarm winning both her singles and doubles matches that day.
KU tennis is armed with fresh wings, a flock of leaders and a dedication to team play this season.
“We have a group atmosphere and everyone loves each other. We are going to work well together, so I am really expecting a good season,” Dorn said.
Predictions for this weekend? “It’s gonna be competitive,” Hall-Holt said. “We gotta play hard to win, but all three are very winnable matches.”
— — Edited by Liz Schubauer
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