Cyclone Tennis Recaps Highlights of Fall Season

AMES, Iowa- The Iowa State Tennis team finished the fall season early in November at the Jason's Deli Collegiate Invitational in Houston. Head coach Armando Espinosa saw progress from the team throughout the fall and is optimistic for the spring season.

At the final tournament of the fall season, the team competed in a pool-play style and took on teams from Syracuse, SMU and Oklahoma.

“The last tournament was our best one,” Espinosa said. “We faced some good competition. When you break it down between wins and losses, I think we won 15 matches and lost 14, so it doesn't look that impressive, but when you look at it in the context of if we would have played a match, then we would have won two out of three and the last one we would have lost 4-3.”

Syracuse and SMU were both ranked last season, and Oklahoma is a Big 12 opponent, making success against these teams worth a little more to the Cyclones.

“It was a pretty good showing,” Espinosa said. “One, because we'll see Oklahoma again, two, because Syracuse and SMU were ranked last season sporadically, so it was good to see that our athletes could suddenly step up.”

Espinosa and associate head coach Chris Williams have spent more time through the fall season working on individual athletes' game styles and they are seeing the payoff in their players.

“We've had some good things,” Espinosa said. “[Ana] Gasparovic qualifying [for ITA Regionals] was the first that's ever done that. We're pretty happy about that but we just need to make sure that we can get a little bit more consistent in terms of the performances. I think Ksenia [Pronina] has done a good job with that and Sami [Budai] has done a good job with learning what her game could be if her A-game is not working. Alejandra [Galvis] is starting to understand what she can do at this level.”

Espinosa noted early in the season that winning the doubles point is crucial for this Cyclone team in spring contest. Espinosa has a little bit more confidence in his team in doubles coming out of the fall.

“If we can head into the spring with the same confidence that we've had doubles-wise, I think we'll be very good,” Espinosa said. “Even the players that were not necessarily in the top three doubles teams, they were doing very well, so if there are any injuries, I won't mind switching people around because I feel like everybody is really doing a good job going forward.”

Iowa State University Athletics

Cyclone Tennis Recaps Highlights of Fall Season

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