Women's tennis to compete in Vanderbilt Invitational

This weekend, the IU women’s tennis team will travel to Nashville, Tenn., to play in the June Stewart Invitational at Vanderbilt University.

All four schools competing in this tournament finished last season ranked in the top 50 in the NCAA National Rankings.

Vanderbilt finished at No. 19, Georgia Institute of Technology No. 21, IU No. 42 and the College of William and Mary finished at No. 44 in last year's rankings.

The games will be played from Friday through Sunday.

Official match play begins in January 2014.

The Hoosiers are using this tournament as a way to improve and get some practice leading into the season.

IU Coach Lin Loring is entering his 37th as head coach of the women’s team.

He said he is using this tournament as a way to test different players and see how they fare as doubles partners.

“We’re just trying to get a lot of matches and figure out what our doubles teams will be when we get to the winter and spring and start duel matches” Loring said. “You can change doubles partners whenever you want during the tournament.”

The team has already played in the Hoosier Classic in Bloomington.

The tournament included the Cincinnati, Eastern Michigan, Kansas State and Western Michigan University.

Since it was not an official match, no team was deemed the victor, however many IU players showed their wares and got off to a nice start for this IU women’s tennis year.
 
IU went 23-5 in singles and 16-4 in doubles play during the Hoosier Classic.

IU has also begun practices and is working hard to be ready for the season.

“We’ve definitely been working very hard with fitness, and we have made some stroke changes for our games. I think that we’ll be mentally and physically tougher for this season,” junior Katie Klyczek said.

Last year the team earned an NCAA tournament berth for the first time in three years.
They also had 18 wins, which is the most since the 2007-08 season.

IU women’s tennis has lost two players for this upcoming season.

Leslie Hureau, who was IU’s first singles player and NCAA All-American last season, has graduated.

Also, Jithmie Jayawickrema, who ended in the sixth singles spot, is finishing her degree but is still around as the student assistant.

Loring, when asked about how the new players will step into their predecessor’s roles, said they’re trying to straighten out the edges before the season begins.

“We’re just trying to get our freshmen used to college,” she said. “We have a couple of kids who are coming back off injuries so we can get all of the rough spots out before January.”

Senior Kayla Fujimoto was one of the players who was injured last season and is ready for the upcoming year.

She sat out all of the 2012-13 campaign due to a shoulder injury and has started playing again for the first time in a year.

She won three matches during the Hoosier Classic and will be playing in the June Stewart Invitational this weekend.

Though the season does not kick off for a couple months, the team said it already has a set of goals it wants to accomplish.

“We obviously want to make it to NCAAs at the end and hopefully finish top three in the Big Ten,” Klyczek said. “We just want to keep improving.”

Follow reporter Greg Gottfried on Twitter @gott31.