Hoosiers prepare for weekend against the SEC

The No. 54 IU women’s tennis team is 8-0 after defeating Xavier and Ball State in Bloomington last weekend. The Hoosiers will play their first weekday match of the spring season when they travel to Knoxville, Tenn. to face No. 25 Tennessee at 4 p.m. Friday.

At 11 a.m. Sunday, IU will take on Kentucky in Lexington, Ky.

IU Coach Lin Loring said an ideal schedule is one divided evenly into three segments: matches in which IU is favored, matches that are a toss-up and matches in which IU’s opponent is favored.

The Hoosiers were favored in their first eight matches, but he said the team will face much tougher competition. Loring said IU is transitioning to the second and third phases of its schedule with the team’s matches this week.

With better opponents comes ranked competition. Tennessee has two ranked singles players and one ranked doubles pair. Junior Brynn Boren is No. 18 in singles and senior Kata Szekely is No. 34. In doubles, Szekely/Boren are the No. 3 combination in the country.

For IU, senior Leslie Hureau and junior Sophie Garre are ranked No. 44 in doubles.

The Lady Volunteers are 0-4 this season with losses to No. 17 Nebraska, No. 22 Georgia Tech, No. 16 Michigan and No. 18 Notre Dame.

All four losses were by a margin of 4-2 or 4-3 on the road. In the past decade, IU is 3-7 against Tennessee and the Hoosiers have lost 5-2 to the Volunteers in each of the past two seasons.

Loring said Tennessee is traditionally very good and the Volunteers are normally a top-20 team, which is why he said the Vols are probably favored in the dual match.

He said the Volunteers’ challenging schedule and IU’s experience on the road has prepared both teams for Friday’s dual match.

“I think they’re definitely ready for us because they’ve played tough competition,” IU Coach Loring said. “We’ve played on the road already twice so I think it’s going to come down to who plays best that day.”

Kentucky is 4-2 with wins against Morehead State, Belmont, Marshall and Ohio State.

The Wildcats suffered a 4-3 loss to No. 48 Penn State as well as a 6-1 defeat against Tulane. In the past decade, IU is 6-3 against Kentucky, including a current Hoosiers win streak of three dual matches.

IU Coach Loring said Sunday’s match will be a toss-up between the two teams.

“We beat them the past two years, but last night they beat Ohio State 4-3 and Ohio State is always a good Big Ten team,” he said. “They’re better this year than they have been, and that’s going to be a tough road match too.”

Loring said similarly to Big Ten teams, IU should be familiar with Tennessee and Kentucky’s players since the Hoosiers play them on an annual basis.

However, he said this weekend’s SEC road trip will be a new experience for the sophomore class, which is a disadvantage for IU.

“We’ve already played twice on the road and Tennessee has a really nice new facility so hopefully we won’t have any adjustment problems,” Loring said. “Kentucky will probably be a little faster but hopefully it won’t be as fast as Marshall.”

IU will practice on Saturday at the University of Kentucky to become acclimated to the new courts and the Hoosiers will have a the day to prepare for their second dual match in three days.

“Hopefully the experience we’ve had so far will get us ready for them,” IU Coach Loring said. “We know we have two really good SEC schools on the road this weekend.”