Good health will allow the ASU women’s tennis team to successfully open its dual meet season this weekend. The Sun Devils take on Iowa State on Friday and UC Davis on Sunday.
Last January the Sun Devils were struggling to keep enough players injury-free for a dual meet. But that isn’t the case this time around.
ASU senior Kelcy McKenna is excited to start the dual season off with most of her teammates able to play.
“It’s refreshing,” McKenna said when asked about having a healthy team. “Hopefully we’re going to do some good things this semester.”
According to Intercollegiate Tennis Association rankings, McKenna is currently ranked No. 34 in singles. She is ranked No. 28 in doubles with her partner, senior Micaela Hein, who holds the No. 74 spot in singles.
For ASU freshman Jacqueline Cako, this will be the first dual competition of her Sun Devil career. However, she has already proven to be a strong addition to the team and is currently ranked 38th in the country.
In October she made it to the quarterfinals in the ITA Southwest Regional Championships, and in November she made it to the semifinals in the 2010 ASU Thunderbird Invitational at ASU.
ASU coach Sheila McInerney expects the competition to be good this opening weekend.
“Everybody is excited to start the dual season,” McInerney said. “Everybody is starting off at zero and wanting great things to happen.”
ISU finished last season with a 9-15 record, and UC Davis finished with a 9-11 record.
The last time the Sun Devils faced ISU was in 2004, when the Sun Devils shutout the Cyclones 7-0.
ISU features several international players, including senior Reka Kelemen from Hungary, sophomore Simona Cacciuttolo from Chile, junior Marie-Christine Chartier from Canada and junior Maria Fernanda Macedo from Mexico.
Kelemen went 10-3 overall in singles last season, while Cacciuttolo finished with a 12-5 record.
UC Davis and ASU competed early last season in a dual that ended with a Sun Devil victory, 5-2.
“We had a good match with UC Davis last year, and they’re better than they were a year ago,” McInerney said.
UC Davis is currently 14-10 in doubles play and 24-20 in singles play from the two California tournaments it competed in during the fall, the Saint Mary’s Invitational and the ITA Regionals.
McInerney was happy with the results she saw from her team last weekend at the Freeman Memorial Championships, a tournament the Sun Devils used as an opportunity to get back into the competition mode after two months off.
“The competition was phenomenal, so I think we’re good to go,” McInerney said. “Everybody knows where they are at.”
The only Sun Devil missing from action is sophomore Nicole Smith, who re-injured her anterior cruciate ligament at the end of last spring and is redshirting this season.
Reach the reporter at Nicole.Klauss@asu.edu
