After a weekend away from competition, the No. 20 ASU women’s tennis team is back in action.
The two-week break ends when the Sun Devils take on Northern Arizona (2-5) on Friday and Pacific (1-3) on Sunday.
ASU (3-1, 0-0 Pac-10) had last week off from competition because they didn’t qualify for the National Team Indoor Championships. Rather than dwell on not qualifying, the Sun Devils used the two weeks to their advantage to get in some quality practice time.
After ASU’s 4-3 loss to Miami on Jan. 30, ASU coach Sheila McInerney has made the practice sessions more focused on getting work done.
“We’ve been moving up the tempo in practice,” McInerney said. “We get one exercise done and move on to the next one.”
The team has focused on ball play and staying in the points longer, McInerney said.
“Miami came out and made us play a lot of balls,” McInerney said. “They were hitting six, seven or eight balls.”
The Sun Devils have been working on patterns that incorporate individual strengths. Players who are stronger with their forehands have worked on patterns that incorporate that type of hitting, while players that are stronger with their backhands have worked on patterns that involve backhand play.
McInerney isn’t worried about improving in anticipation of this weekend’s competition, but rather for the upcoming Pac-10 schools.
The Sun Devils have next weekend off, and then they will have tennis matches every weekend for the remainder of the season.
“These next couple of weeks for us before we go to Texas are really important,” McInerney said. “Once that starts we have very little time to practice.”
McInerney is confident the Sun Devils will have the advantage this weekend.
“We should be the better team in both matches,” McInerney said. “We just have to really concentrate.”
Red-shirt sophomore Nikki Smith also believes her teammates will come out with two wins this weekend.
“They’ll do well this weekend,” Smith said. “The tempo of the practices have been more upbeat and there has been more of an emphasis on fitness.”
The last time the Sun Devils played NAU was in January of 2009, and they swept the Lumberjacks (7-0).
NAU and Pacific have both had tough starts to their seasons, and will certainly be looking to turn things around.
This season, the Lumberjacks were swept by UA (7-0) and UC Santa Barbara (5-0). NAU’s wins have come over Cal State Bakersfield (6-1) and UTEP (4-3).
Pacific recently fell to UNLV (4-3) and Santa Clara (6-1).
Reach the reporter at nicole.klauss@asu.edu
