Men's tennis to face Samford

The No. 56 IU men's tennis team will compete in Charlottesville, Va., in an Intercollegiate Tennis Association kickoff event starting Friday. The other schools competing in this will be No. 65 Samford, No. 46 Elon and the defending national champions, No. 1 Virginia Cavaliers.

The Hoosiers will start with action against Samford Friday, with a guaranteed second match on Saturday. If the Hoosiers win on Friday, their match on Saturday will be for a prestigious spot in the ITA national tournament.

The weight of the weekend was not lost on IU Coach Randy Bloemendaal.

“It’s a lot of pressure,” Bloemendaal said. “In the next 48 hours, how we deal with that pressure and how we unify as a team is going to be important.”

Bloemendaal tried to shift attention away from the possible rewards of two victories this weekend and focused instead on beating Samford Friday.

He said in order to beat Samford, the Hoosiers will need to improve their play in singles matches.

“In singles we’re still trying to figure out our identity and once we figure that out we’re going to do better and better,” Bloemendaal said. “We have to find one more guy at the bottom.”

Bloemndaaal said experience does matter in these matches.

“That’s where Dima (Dimitirije Tasic) and Sven (Lalic) need to step up,” Bloemendaal said. “If they set the tone it makes a big difference in this match.”

Tasic and Lalic struggled against Kentucky last Tuesday, both losing their singles matches. Their joint effort in doubles also came up well short as they failed to win a game.

Bloemendaal said he believes if the Hoosiers start coming together they can beat anybody, even the defending national champions.

“I think we’ve got a couple of guys who are the best players in the country who can beat anybody,” Bloemendaal said. “It’s just getting them going in the right direction and getting them believing in each other.”

Bloemendaal said how the Hoosiers need to be mentally tougher this weekend than they were in their loss at Kentucky.

“These guys have competed over and over again for their spots,” Bloemendaal said. “It’s really about stepping up in big situations and playing big, getting a little gritty and standing up against the guy across the net.”

The seventh-year coach said his team would not be affected by the stiff competition.

“We want to play the best teams in the country because we want to be the best team in the country,” Bloemendaal said. “We’re not going there for the experience.”

He said he believed the Hoosiers could not realistically win this weekend. Then he said that realism doesn't matter.

“I don’t think any of our goals that we have set for this year are realistic,” Bloemendaal said. “If it’s realistic then why are we playing this season?”

Follow reporter Michael Hughes on Twitter @MichaelHughes94