The best a team has to offer often inhabits Court One, but what does it take to be the best? How does a coach determine which player is most suited to take on their opponents’ greatest?
Is it overall talent and skill? Is it experience? Or is it about emotional control and the ability to handle pressure?
Truth is, it’s all the above. So much about tennis, or sports in general, is the ability to maintain composure while also displaying a vast amount of talent garnered over years of training. That ability isn’t earned right away, and that’s where experience comes in.
You can’t be the best at tennis through talent alone. Such is the case with Ronald Hohmann.
Hohmann was one of the highest-rated recruits coming out of high school. As a true freshman he had the talent to match up with most of LSU’s roster once he reached Baton Rouge. However, his talent can’t be displayed at its fullest without one important component: emotional control.
One might’ve compared his playing tennis to defusing a bomb during his freshman season. At times, he was one bad call away from exploding, and there was never a chance of saving the match after that. But whenever he had his emotions under control, people could see his potential.
“He’s very inconsistent, but when he plays his best, there’s not many guys who can beat him, and almost every match is up to him,” Coach Chris Brandi said. “The problem is, he doesn’t know how to manage himself quite yet. But he’s doing a better job of that, and he’ll continue to do a better job of that.”
In some ways, he made an immediate, positive impact on the Tigers, evident by the fact that he was placed at Court Two in singles to start the spring and also started in doubles. But other things took time, like winning against ranked opponents and as the title states, establishing consistency.
His first two ranked matches were against top-50 opponents in Virginia Tech’s Mitch Harper and Tulane’s Hamish Stewart, and both were swift, two-set matches where Hohmann offered little resistance to defeat (granted he did have the flu against Stewart). And regarding consistency, pulling up his freshman schedule reveals streaks of red and green, as his season could best be described as hot and cold.
Towards the end of his true freshman season was when his true potential would start to surface.
Against one of the best players in the country (Florida’s Sam Riffice, who was No. 5 at the time), Hohmann won a set and ultimately lost in tiebreakers. It wouldn’t take much longer for him to earn his first ranked win, as he would defeat No. 46 Daniel Rodrigues in the very next match.
“Everybody can see that if he can keep it together mentally, he’s as good as anyone,” Brandi said about Hohmann after that match. “At certain moments, even [No. 46 Rodrigues] had no answer for Ronnie.”
He would finish the season with a 7-6 record in singles, and a 1-3 record against ranked opponents. It would be about six months before we would see him play again.
During those six months, he worked hard in the weight room and according to Brandi, gained about eight pounds in muscle. With that growth, Brandi believes it has helped him immensely in his progression.
“Part of being mentally tough is your body has got to be physically tough,” Brandi stated. “You can withstand a bit more from your opponent, and you don’t wear down as easily. I don’t think he was there last year, and he’s done a good job of working hard on that and that’s been a big difference for him.”
Entering the fall of the 2020-21 season, it was difficult to predict how much he had improved over the offseason. But any questions we had regarding his improvement and lineup placement would be answered at the Bulldog Challenge in October.
Though he would lose his first two matches of the event, stressing out his coaches and the fans, he would erase that stress with a huge win over No. 24 Adam Walton out of Tennessee. Brandi described it as what happens when Hohmann matches his potential.
“He beat one of the best players in the country, which is definitely the best win he has had in college,” Brandi said regarding his performance. “That’s the kind of guy we need Ronnie to compete against. He honestly showed the level he could play at and that gives the other guys confidence.”
With that match, he truly earned and established his spot at Court One for the Tigers.
His inconsistency would show itself in blips throughout the rest of fall and start of spring. After the win against Walton, he would lose his next match against an unranked opponent and he would suffer another unranked loss early in the spring against UL-Lafayette.
However, those were the only two losses he’s suffered since defeating Walton, including ranked matches. He’s defeated the last four ranked players he’s faced, two of which have occurred in the last week and the last of which was revenge over No. 40 Hamish Stewart, who soundly defeated him last season.
“I wasn’t feeling my best when he beat me last time, but it wasn’t even close and [being] sick wasn’t everything to do with it,” Hohmann said about the win. “I’m very happy that I was able to beat him after he pretty much worked me the last time. I think that shows that I’ve been improving, and he has obviously gotten better as well.”
That match puts into perspective how much he has improved, and with the next set of rankings coming soon, it’ll be interesting to see where he falls after his last two victories. As it stands, he currently sits at 8-4 on the season, 4-2 against ranked opponents and he’s ranked No. 99 in the country.
Through improvement in skill and composure, Hohmann has and will continuously improve and could end up becoming one of the best players in the country. He’s improved in every statistically category and his coaches’ and teammates’ confidence in him grows every day.
