Tennis club ready to serve up fun

By Casey White

Emily Taylor has been playing tennis since she was in middle school, but when she came to Winthrop University, she didn’t know anybody else on campus who played. 

This year, Taylor decided to reactivate Winthrop’s Tennis Club in order to connect tennis players who didn’t have anyone to play with. 

“Everyone that came to the [Tennis Club meeting] said ‘I don’t know anyone here who plays tennis,’” said Taylor. 

Meaghan Mikulas, who is a new member herself, also hopes the club will be able to form connections between people who play tennis at Winthrop.

“I think the focus is to be able to practice together and create a team-like feel,”  said Mikulas. “So this very independent sport becomes a little less so.”

Taylor restarted the club in hopes that she will make connections for herself and for other students who want to continue playing tennis while attending Winthrop.

Once the team has been established, Taylor hopes that they will be able to not only play together, but to compete against other schools.

“Everyone in the club wants to compete with other schools,” Taylor said. “A lot of other schools have club tennis, and they all compete together.”

Mikulas also hopes to play against other schools whether in a competitive competition or just informal round robin tournaments.

The Tennis Club has been inactive since Taylor, who is now a junior, came to Winthrop. She wanted to start the club earlier in her college career, but her course load prevented her from doing so.

“This year my course load was a lot lighter, I didn’t have as much homework and I had a lot of free time,” Taylor said. 

Taylor says the club is “geared towards people who want to play competitively,” but is not limited to those people.

“If someone wants to join that has no experience whatsoever, they are more than welcome to come as well,” said Taylor. 

In order to garner attention, Taylor had her roommate, a former graphic design major, make flyers about the club. Taylor posted those flyers around campus, put notes in the daily student announcement e-mails and got about 20 people to show up to the first interest meeting. 

Taylor is happy with the turnout so far but wouldn’t mind if there was an increase in club members.

“It’s kind of a good and a bad thing to have more people. More people means a lot more organizing, and a lot more hard work,” said Taylor, “but it’s definitely always great to see it grow and see more people.”

She hopes that once the club is established it will be able to meet twice a week so that everybody in the club can attend at least one practice a week. 

Taylor encourages anyone interested in joining the Tennis Club to “come out and come play.”