IU freshmen impress coach at Invitational

Head coach Lin Loring entered the Western Michigan Invitational with the mindset that the weekend would be like an audition for his Hoosiers. The four returnees would give up the high singles positions for work on their doubles game, while four freshmen would acquire those positions for a "tryout." But the IU women's tennis team far exceeded its coach's expectations.\n"Overall, we played well," Loring said. "We wanted to see how the doubles play. Also, how our new players play singles, so we can learn more about their games. It was real successful from that stand point."\nThe shining moment for IU was the pleasant surprise of freshman Alba Berdala's play. In her first taste of college tennis, she excelled by winning the Flight "A" Singles bracket of the tournament in Kalamazoo, Mich. \n"I am very happy with how I played," Berdala said through a translator. "I feel more confident on the court. I've been getting used to the hard courts because I've only played on clay courts before."\nThe 2005 Bronco Invitational was divided into flight tournaments based upon competition. Loring's decision to move more experienced players from higher levels enabled the inexperienced underclassmen to play tougher matches. The move was made to both analyze their game against tougher competition and introduce them to the collegiate level of tennis, Loring said.\n"For all our new kids, it was their first college match," Loring said. "I wanted to introduce them to college tennis and everything that comes along with it."\nJuggling her first experience with college tennis, Berdala was still able to play extremely well on a court with which she's unfamiliar. She didn't lose a set the entire weekend, in both singles and doubles play. \n"Alba had a very nice tournament," Loring said. "We are very pleased with what we saw. We don't look at these tournaments as a win-loss perspective. We see it as way to get better. And we really learned a lot about all our players"