Women’s tennis approaches season’s end

By Andrew Posch

Friday, October 23, 2009

After two months of competition, women’s tennis has only two tournaments left.

An eight-team tournament beginning at 9 a.m. today at First Serve in Lawrence and ending Sunday will conclude the Jayhawks’ 2009 season.

While coach Amy Hall-Holt is with four players at the ITA regional tournament in Norman, Okla., this weekend, assistant coach German Dalmagro will lead the four remaining players in the home tournament.

“We don’t have a few of our top girls, but we expect a lot,” Dalmagro said.

Senior Kuni Dorn, juniors Maria Martinez and Kate Goff and sophomore Alie Dzuba have been preparing for this weekend since the KU Invitational Sept. 25-27. After a successful finish, including an undefeated doubles run by Dzuba and Martinez, Goff said the four Jayhawks are ready to go out in style.

“There are a lot of good teams coming, so it’s a good chance for the four of us that are here to perform well and end the season on a good note,” Goff said.

All week the players have been training specifically to satisfy their own objectives — both physical and mental.

Both Goff and Martinez said that their mental game has given them trouble in the past. As hard as they’ve practiced on the court, it’s their heads that have hindered match victories. In order to improve, Martinez said, she needs to concentrate on every point she plays.

The players also took a different approach during on-court practice. They split into two teams and went head-to-head with each other. This way they could more easily put pressure on themselves to set up for real match situations, instead of just drilling.

“We made it fun and played points in a game situation,” Dorn said. “It was nerve-wracking playing against your own teammates.”

Dalmagro said one of the most prominent goals laid out at the beginning of the season was to gain experience from matches. For this final weekend, he hopes his players will take the skills they’ve picked up and put them to use. “We’ll just go play and see how we do,” he said. “We want to finish strong.”

To end out on top, The Jayhawks will have to make their way through seven other squads from throughout the Midwest. This includes three Big 12 schools – Iowa State, Kansas State and Missouri. Other teams attending are Abilene Christian, UMKC, New Mexico and Arkansas State.

UMKC is the only one of the opponents that Kansas has faced already this year. Including both singles and doubles matches, the Jayhawks beat the Kangaroos in six matches and only lost two.

— Edited by Abby Olcese

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