Challenging schedules beneficial to tennis teams

By Hannah Schwartz

schwartzh@mytjnow.com

Last year, both Winthrop tennis teams were Big South regular-season conference champions. This year, both the men’s and women’s teams hope to maintain that success. Standing in their way, however, will be very tough schedules.

Both teams were preseason favorites to repeat as Big South Conference champs. Coach Cid Carvalho knows, in order to keep his teams at the top of the conference, he needs them to compete against top-notch programs, including nationally ranked teams from the ACC and SEC. Because the final result can be out of each player’s hands, it is important to focus on performance rather than wins and losses, especially against those top-ranked teams. “The wins will come, and the losses will come, too,” Carvalho said. 

Already this year, both teams have played several nationally ranked schools. Although they did not win all of those matches, Carvalho sees the beginning of the season as a very productive start. Playing against such tough teams is “all about getting the players better, improving,” he said. As long as they compete well, any points, games, sets or matches they win are victories, he said. “We are not worrying about the records; we’re worrying about getting ready for later on,” Carvalho said.

Women’s team captain Sara Abutovic agrees with her coach’s assessment of the season so far. “We fought hard and we played well, but those teams were just a little better than us,” she said. She also said the team is getting stronger every year, and they think they can compete with those higher-echelon teams. 

This time of year is about getting better and getting ready for the championship at the end of the season. It is important for the teams to peak at the right time. “If we can leave the court feeling like we left everything out on the court, we leave the court as winners, regardless of what the result is,” Carvalho said. 

Everyone on both teams knows it will take much effort to be repeat champions, but they are willing to put in the time to win. Now that the weather is getting better, the teams are out working harder than ever, getting ready for the grinding season ahead of them.

Carvalho invites the students out to watch a match. Especially once the weather improves, he said there will be some exciting home matches to attend.