Tuning up for its spring season, the LSU women’s tennisteam begins its last fall tournament today at the SoutheasternConference Coaches Classic in Atlanta.
LSU coach Tony Minnis said the collegiate fall tennis seasonworks much like a preseason in any other sport, with this finaltournament as a chance to evaluate talent and work on thebasics.
“The biggest thing we try to do is change things in thefall and work on aspects of the game,” Minnis said.”We’ve competed well and I think we’ve madesignificant improvement. We’re just looking to kind of keepon that pace.”
With this tournament being the Lady Tigers first look at SECopponents before the spring, Minnis said he hopes the veteranplayers will gain confidence in their game, while the youngerplayers get some valuable experience against conference foes.
Lone senior Amanda Mang said the Lady Tigers should take thistournament as a stepping stone toward league play in thespring.
“I hope some of the girls on our team get some good rankedwins and get a lot of confidence going,” Mang said.”Then you have confidence going into the spring. This is theSEC tournament so we’ll be playing a lot of the same girls[in the spring]. If you kind of know you’ve beaten them, itwill help when you play them in a dual match.”
Minnis said the Lady Tigers’ five upperclassmen have madesignificant advances from last season.
“I see a lot of improvement and maturity,” Minnissaid “Last year we did some really nice and special things.The biggest thing that we’re looking to improve on from lastyear to this year is consistency effort-wise every time out.
“I see that we’re picking it up to where every timewe step on the court we seem to be playing with a more consistentnature.”
The Lady Tigers’ two newest players, Tiffany Tucker andStaten Spencer, also have added quality depth to the team and havecompeted well, Minnis said.
“I think our two freshmen have really made a significantjump,” Minnis said. “I’m impressed with theirprogress. They’re adjusting well and they seem likethey’re contributing.”
Mang said the team’s greatest challenge is to establishteam chemistry, especially embracing the two freshmen after losingtwo seniors from last year’s squad.
“The reason we did so well last year is that we had such aclose team,” Mang said. “I think everybody’scompeting really hard. When you get new people in you always wantto compete a little harder to show them how it’sdone.”
The Lady Tigers have already begun to tighten some of those teambonds with optimism and hard work, LSU junior Lauren Seamansaid.
“We’ve been working really hard and I think thateveryone on the team has really good attitudes this year,”Seaman said. “We’re looking forward to face other SECteams because we have yet to do so this fall and becausethere’s a lot of good tough competition in the SEC. I thinkit will be a confidence builder and I also think it will be a goodtest to see how we can compete with them.”