Marquette’s tennis teams concluded their non-conference schedules over the school’s spring break period. The women’s team went 3-1 while the men dropped all four of their matches.
The women’s team started the break by welcoming Butler and Illinois State to Helfaer Tennis Stadium. Marquette was able to handle both matches with ease, beating Illinois State 6-1 and Butler 7-0. For the rest of the week the Golden Eagles traveled to Florida to take on Cincinnati and Florida Atlantic. Cincinnati was able to squeeze out a 4-3 victory, but Marquette finished the trip on a high note by beating Florida Atlantic 4-3.
“Obviously we need to keep improving on things. We won the doubles point in all of our matches, so that was definitely a positive,” women’s head coach Jody Bronson said. “We did not perform as well as we should have against Cincinnati in singles. (Cincinnati) was a disappointing match to lose because we were good enough to win it.”
The women’s team has been helped greatly by the play of Silvia Ambrosio. At the No. 1 singles position the freshman has won her past seven matches, including an impressive 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 win over Cincinnati’s No. 1 Ali Miller.
“She is incredibly talented,” Bronson said. “She has to keep her focus from start to finish and when she is able to do that she is going to beat some really good players.”
With BIG EAST play set to start this weekend, Bronson is counting on a good week of practice from her team.
“In every drill we do there has to be that focus and urgency building up to playing our matches this weekend because we know how important they are,” she said. “We need to be at our best.”
For the men’s team there was no easy match on its road trip. All four of the team’s opponents had been in the national rankings at some point this year. The Golden Eagles started the trip in Texas where they fell 4-0 to No. 44 Southern Methodist and 4-0 to Texas-Arlington. They then traveled to California where they lost 4-0 to No. 31 San Diego and 5-2 to Portland.
“The thing about the trip is we played four really good teams,” said men’s head coach Steve Rodecap. “In some areas I felt like our guys did a really good job and there were matches that I felt we up against it.”
The Golden Eagles’ overall record fell to 8-9. Despite the winless road trip, Rodecap says his team is still confident and they have been able to learn from these matches.
“I am a firm believer that you need to hate to lose,” said Rodecap. “I think losing hurts, but I want it to really hurt them because I think that puts a little fire in your belly moving forward.”
One positive for Marquette has been the play of freshmen Greg Anderson and Alvaro Verdu, who lead the team in singles wins in dual action with seven apiece.
The Golden Eagles could be without junior Kristiyan Trukov to start BIG EAST play, as he is dealing with a pelvis injury and didn’t play against San Diego or Portland.
Rodecap is taking a step-by-step approach with his team as they prepare for to start conference play.
“It is one day at a time. We need to get better every time that we are out there,” said Rodecap. “This group does a good job with that. They are all in.”
Creighton will be coming to Helfaer Tennis Stadium Friday to play both teams in split action. The men will then face Xavier at home on Saturday.
