Despite clinching a spot in the playoffs in 2014, the men’s and women’s tennis teams look to capture the Big Sky Conference Championship this upcoming season and advance past the first round of the NCAA Division I Tournament. 

In the spring of 2014, men’s tennis finished fifth in the Big Sky standings, which included a postseason berth. This year, the team has huge expectations moving forward with the progression of their season. 

Men’s assistant coach Kevin Kurtz said the team had an acceptable run in their preseason fall tournaments as it was a tune-up before the regular season starts in the spring. The team is already starting to get healthier and are gelling together as one. 

“Right now we’ve got 10 guys ready to go, so it’s good,” Kurtz said. “We’ve also switched up to a little bit different fitness testing, to see where the guys were stiff as far as their bodies.” 

With this new kind of fitness testing, he said it could help prevent injuries in the future. It was something that Kurtz said the team needed to address as the team had previously been injury-free the last few seasons up until last season. 

Bill Campbell, who is entering his ninth season as the director of tennis for the men’s and women’s team, said both rosters do this fitness testing together right after their practices. 

The testing itself was mainly based on agility such as running and improving their cardio. They also included light weight lifting too. Both programs have been working with physical therapists and an orthopedic surgeon. 

“Last year, we had quite a few injuries and we decided to take a look at fitness testing and see if there were some things that we could add to it that could maybe cut down on any future injuries,” Campbell said. “We added stretching and more strength training to the program.” 

Even though the team clinched a playoff berth in 2014, senior Tom Miller, who is one of the leaders on the roster, said he was not too pleased with the overall final outcome. 

“We were disappointed after last year so our expectations are to bounce back from that and we need to come out and win the Big Sky,” Miller said. “We want to break through on the bigger teams that we haven’t beaten before.”

Miller said the team continues to work hard in practice and is excited for when the regular season begins. 

Senior Roy Brandys, another team leader, said his goal is for the team to stay healthy and to make it to the NCAA Division I Tournament. Brandys was less thrilled with their fall scores. 

“We had some mixed results [in the fall tournaments], we had some better tournaments, worse tournaments, good matches, and worse matches as some of us were still struggling with injuries in the fall,” Brandys said. “Coming off the summer and spring, we had a lot of injured players and the fall was pre-season to see where we’re at for the upcoming spring season.” 

Injuries have affected both rosters this season. Both squads are looking to stay healthy on and off of the courts. 

One of the key athletes on the women’s roster, junior Jennifer Nguyen, tore her right ACL back in March during a match. She had to retire from the contest because she unable to compete and since has been recovering smoothly. 

“My recovery is going really good, I worked really hard over the summer so I’ve been practicing for a couple of months now,” Nguyen said. “Hopefully, by spring I can be competing again.” 

Assistant coach Daryl Lee said the team played in a total of three fall tournaments and that the athletes learned a lot from one another. 

“I think a lot of the players gained a lot of valuable experience,” Lee said. “There was an off-court conditioning program 

hat the players have been doing five days a week, they’ve been doing that as well as practicing on improving their games.” 

Women’s tennis is coming off a third place finish in their conference, including a postseason berth. As a team, they have aspirations of achieving even greater success this upcoming year after breaking their astounding 112 winning streak in the Big Sky Conference last season. 

Junior Olivia Boija said the team has learned a lot from their previous tournaments such as what the opponents are like and how they play the game. 

“We don’t want to lose any conference matches and try to win all conference matches 7-0,” Boija said. “Obviously, we want to get ranked and to be able to win the first round [in the NCAA Tournament], that’s our huge goal.”

The women hope to recreate a new streak in conference play and the team agreed that having a dynamic roster will help them achieve that feat. Nguyen said they have a variety of backgrounds, making this squad unique. 

“Being on this team, I think it has given me good leadership skills and it’s really helped me develop as a person,” Nguyen said. “All the women are really great we’re from everywhere, so it’s good to experience different cultures and nationalities.” 

For men’s tennis, they will be participating in a Campus Showdown on Jan. 18. Women’s tennis will have their first regular season game on Jan. 24 at home against San Jose State at 1 p.m. at the Rio del Oro Racquet Club.