Indiana women's tennis returned to the court this past weekend, participating in the UC/Xavier Fall Invitational.
Juniors Rose Hu, Lexi Kubas, and Mila Mejic travelled to Cincinnati to play in the two-day tournament.
The invitational also welcomed five other schools: Bellarmine University, the University of Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky University, Ohio State and Xavier University all played in the tournament.
Head coach Ramiro Azcui said he used this weekend to return to the basics and set strong fundamentals for his players.
“Just some of the movements that we're trying to emphasize on the doubles, being in the right spot at the right time, those kinds of things,” Azcui said. “We were working on some of the specific movements that we're trying to emphasize in practice, and we were able to accomplish that as well.”
Hu won two of her three singles matches in the tournament and also went two for three in doubles.
Last season, Hu went 1-5 in singles competition and 2-2 in doubles competition.
“I think overall the weekend went really well, and I had a couple competitive matches with the Northern Kentucky girls,” Hu said. “I don't know her name but she's a graduate student that plays on the team. I just found my rhythm and beat her in the third set in a tie breaker. That was a close match. ”
Indiana only has two more tournaments left in the fall following this weekend, the ITA Regional Championships which will be played Oct 21-25 and the Alabama Classic on Oct 29-30..
Both Azcui and Hu know the competition level will be high in the team’s final tournaments.
“All those schools are going to give us a better indication of where we are, how much more we need to keep working,” Azuci said. “My emphasis is obviously going to be this next tournament and to try to respond to the better competition.”
Four Hoosiers will play in the ITA Regional Championships in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
For Hu and her teammates, they will look to use these tournaments to prepare for the spring season.
“My team and I have a pretty clear goal that we want to be the team next season to surprise everybody in the Big Ten conference so we are all giving our best in every practice and do as much as we can to achieve that goal,” Hu said.
