The No. 18 LSU women’s tennis team hits the road to take on No. 26 Kentucky at 5 p.m. tonight at the Boone Tennis Complex in Lexington, Kentucky.
The Lady Tigers (13-5, 2-2 Southeastern Conference) just refuse to lose their smiles as they prepared for their fifth conference match of the season.
Co-head coaches Julia and Michael Sell preach the importance of staying true to the process weekly. Now, not even the tough loss to then-No. 28 Mississippi State on Sunday seems to affect the Lady Tigers’ mentality.
“I have a lot of confidence in this team in general, no matter who we play,” Julia said. “We’ve proven that we can beat anybody. Kentucky is much-improved team from last year, but so are we.”
The Sell’s confidence in the depth of their team gives them the opportunity to change lineups without consequences.
After seeing no end to the Lady Tigers’ struggle in doubles play, they decided to move freshman Jessica Golovin to court 1 and partner with junior Joana Vale Costa, while having sophomore Ryann Foster join junior Abigail Owens on court 2 last weekend against then-No. 27 Ole Miss and Mississippi State.
Though the Lady Tigers still lost the doubles point in both matches, the new duos brought up excitement on the coaches front.
“This weekend, we found three more teams that worked really well,” Julia said. “They are definitely still getting used to one another, because we did just change it up mid-year. You saw a little bit of them learning how to communicate, but I liked what I saw and have high hopes moving forward.”
Other than improvement in doubles play, Julia looks for more aggressiveness from her team. She believes the players haven’t played their best possible tennis yet, but taking the right steps forward will get them there.
“With a team of seven players, it’s hard to get everyone going on the same day, but things like good energy and a good attitude are things that will feed into our tennis,” said senior Ella Taylor. “If we control the things we can, the rest will take care of itself.”
New additions to the Wildcats team force LSU to disregard its 4-0 win from last year. The Lady Tigers are treating the familiar opponent as if they had never faced them before.
“Going in with that type of mentality, we don’t put extra pressure on ourselves,” Taylor said. “They are a great team, came close to South Carolina, who beat Vanderbilt, so it’s all very up-and-down and on the day at the moment.”
No. 7 Vanderbilt is LSU’s next stop on the schedule. The matchup marks its highest ranked SEC opponent so far this season and provides a challenging environment, due to a colder climate and different surface.