IU prepares for 3-squad tournament

By Andy Wittry
awittry@indiana.edu

After a two-month respite from competition, the IU women’s tennis team will be back in action this weekend during the adidas IU Winter Invitational at the IU Tennis Center.

Due to NCAA regulations limiting the amount of time coaches can spend with their players, the women carried on their training, both collectively and individually, during winter break without the coaching staff.

“The coaches couldn’t be with us, but we played on our own, and we played here [at the IU Tennis Center] before we went back home, where we practiced by ourselves,” senior Leslie Hureau said. “This week is going to be important to get back and play with the girls.”

The tournament is the final tune-up, as the Hoosiers head into the spring season and dual matches that come with it.

“In the fall, we only had three tournaments, and they weren’t dual matches,” Hureau said. “The spring is much more intense with the Big Ten matches and big matches against teams such as Tennessee. The big season is in the spring.”

No. 49-ranked IU will face Bowling Green, Marquette and No. 52 Missouri in the three-day tournament.

There will be two nationally ranked singles players in the field. Missouri has No. 71 Cierra Gaytan-Leach, and Bowling Green junior Emily Reuland is No. 87 in the country.

IU’s pair of players from France, Hureau and junior Sophie Garre, is ranked No. 31 in doubles. Missouri’s Cierra Gaytan-Leach and Elisha Gabb make up the No. 26 doubles pairing in Division I women’s tennis.

Doubles matches will be the focus for the Hoosiers in the invitational.

Hureau said that IU has room for improvement in that area.

“It’s something that we haven’t been really good at in the past couple seasons,” she said. “I think that, this year, it’s going to be really important to be better in doubles. This tournament is going to be a good way to play a lot of doubles.”

IU Coach Lin Loring said he shares Hureau’s goal for IU to be a good team in terms of doubles.

“I want us to play good doubles,” he said. “This weekend we’re set for two singles and five doubles, so there’s a big emphasis on doubles. The goal is to see a continuation of the good, smart tennis that we were playing at the end of the semester.”

Loring said he trusts the hours his players have spent practicing during the past several months instead of implementing major changes in the team’s training with spring season quickly approaching.

“We don’t do a lot of individual changes at this point in the season,” he said. “You have to go with what you have, and we just work more on strategy. This semester we worked a little more on strategy and less on mechanics.”

While the Hoosiers want to play well this weekend, Loring looks at the adidas IU Winter Invitational in the context of the entire season.

He said it is important for the team to mentally prepare for their dual matches that are in the following weekends.

Hopefully, they will finish in the Big Ten Tournament and play in the NCAA
Championships, Loring said.