With just a week of practice behind them since returning from break, the Mississippi State women’s tennis team faces its first test of the new year this weekend in the Georgia Invitational. As part of a four-team contingent along with Kansas State, Troy and Georgia, the Lady Bulldogs travel to Athens, Ga., for the season-opening tournament. The competition will start today and run through Sunday.
With the tournament’s combination of singles and doubles matches, head coach Tracy Lane said it closely resembles the dual match play that will make up the remainder of the season.
“It’s a good way to start the season,” Lane said. “We have three challenging matches over the course of three days, which will help see where we are at as a team.”
As the tournament does not count against the team as dual match play, Lane said it will be a good opportunity to experiment with the doubles lineup.
“There are a few combinations we’d like to try,” Lane said. “Everyone has different strengths, and we’re still figuring out how best to put them together.”
The long break, with most of the players leaving the country, was both beneficial and detrimental to the team. Some of the players were forced indoors by the cold weather of their home countries, and not all of them had the same facilities as the school, Lane said.
“All of my players went home, and it was a good rest for those who had picked up injuries during the fall,” Lane said. “But there was not the opportunity for all of them to train as we’d like them to.”
With a week’s worth of practice behind it, Lane said that for the most part, her squad has a clean bill of health.
“We had a few injuries in the fall that set us back a bit,” Lane said. “But we are mostly healthy now, besides a few nagging aches and pains. Nothing that will put someone on the sidelines.”
Senior Renee Joseph leads the Lady Bulldogs with her singles ranking of 67th in the nation, while the rest hope to emulate her as the team gets back to its best this spring.
Georgia, also playing its first tournament of the year, goes into the tournament ranked fifth in the nation.
In the same competition last year, Martina Banikova and Valeriya Makarycheva posted first round singles wins before succumbing to higher ranked opposition from Georgia in the second round.
The Lady Bulldogs go into the new year currently unranked as a team, but Lane targets spring as the time for the team to hit its best form.
“We look forward to where we are playing our best tennis around March,” Lane said. “In a way it’s like basketball – we are always gearing up for March Madness.