Hoping to build on its success in the last competition, the MSU women’s tennis team will be traveling to Auburn, Ala., to compete in the SEC Fall Classic this weekend. Though there were some losses last weekend at the ITA Southern Region Indoor Championships, MSU head coach Tracy Lane said she is glad more victories were gained than losses.
“I looked over the stats yesterday, and we’re doing a lot better than we have the last couple of years,” Lane said.
During a draw singles play, Renée Joseph competed against Florida’s Megan Alexander. Joseph grabbed the opening set, with Alexander claiming the second. In a tiebreaker third set, Joseph pulled off one of the biggest upsets of her tennis career with a final score of 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(6). However, Joseph then fell to Naoko Ueshima of Georgia in the second round.
Lane said consistency has been a problem with the team during the fall competition this season.
“We’re not quite performing at a consistent level, one area that I would really like for us to improve on,” she said.
Lane said one thing the team is looking to do in the Fall Classic is to improve upon their winning percentage.
“The team tries to get the winning percentage, and right now we’re even in singles and have the winning percentage in doubles,” she said.
With the ITA Southern Regionals, MSU went 6-7 in singles play and 2-3 in doubles play.
“We’ve done better in singles, and I am really happy about the results so far,” Lane said.
MSU will take six singles players and three doubles teams to the Fall Classic.
Singles competition will feature Joseph, Ferancova, Makarycheya, de Villiers, Daniela Juskova and Tatiana Feit. MSU’s doubles teams will consist of DeAndra Saddler and Makarycheya, Juskova and Joseph, and de Villiers and Ferancova.