Young team faces stiff competition early

The lady Hoosiers will open up team play Sunday in Durham, N.C. The team will kick off the season against Duke University, which is ranked No. 3 in the nation, at noon. Just a few hours later, the team will suit up again to play UNC Greensboro. Play against the Spartans will commence at 5:30 p.m.

According to the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s rankings, Duke features six of the top 125 singles players in the nation. These players include No. 7 Beatrice Capra, No. 35 Monica Turewicz, No. 38 Hanna Mar, No. 66 Mary Clayton, No. 97 Annie Mulholland and No. 118 Rachel Kahan.

The Blue Devils also feature two of the top 60 doubles pairs in the country. These tandems include No. 7 Capra and Ester Goldfeld, and No. 46 Mulholland and Mar.
UNC Greensboro features the No. 40 doubles pair in the nation, Nitooli Wilkins and Lucy Dougherty.

Comparatively, the Hoosiers’ lone representative in the top 125 players in the country is freshman Carolyn Chupa, who is ranked No. 79 among her peers. IU features no nationally-ranked doubles pairings.

With five of the 10 team members this season being freshmen, lone senior Genya Vertesheva said her role has changed from previous years.

“I have to be a lot more responsible because I am the team captain and organize everyone. I have to be a role model especially with five freshmen who try to look at you all the time, I have to be ready to help,” Vertesheva said.

When going up against one of the top teams in the country for an opening match, Vertesheva said confidence is vital.

“I will tell them to be confident. We have a really good team this year,a lot of things have changed, and we practiced hard so I will tell them to be confident,” she said.
Looking forward to the rest of the season, Vertesheva said she feels optimistic about the team this year.

“I feel really good, even though we have five freshmen,” Vertesheva said. “I compliment all the freshmen for working hard. They did a really good job. All of us are unified, we have good team chemistry.”

With the plethora of players compared to previous years, she said this gives the team more versatility and flexibility, especially when it comes to doubles matches.

“We have more doubles combinations, and this will help us a lot. All of us are ready to go and compete this year,” Vertesheva said.