Winona State University’s women’s tennis head coach Tom Sanvik has been working hard this season to make his players the best they can be.
Third-year player Faith Young said Sanvik listens to the players’ requests, but also is not afraid to change things up a little.
“I think he has handled this transition into college level tennis very well,” Young said. “He is very open to suggestions and he lets us help make decisions; he is not just really authoritative, he is pretty good at letting us have a say and he is the reason I am playing doubles this season instead of singles.”
Third-year Brooke Holloway said she is proud of the team this season and looks forward to seeing the team improve and move upward every day.
“Our doubles [are] playing very well, and the singles line up is coming together more and more as we keep hitting balls and we are hitting more consistently and aggressively [than] imagined, but our mental game is improving significantly,” Holloway said. “It is so important that we go out onto the court with the belief that we can do it and that has been our motto this year.”
This past weekend the women’s tennis team had a double header.
As Holloway prepared for the weekend’s meets, she said her hopes for the matches and the team is to leave with nothing but two wins in the record book.
“We always humble ourselves, knowing that every team brings some sort of competition and talent, but in the end, we truly believe that we can overcome,” Holloway said.
On Saturday, the Warriors went up against University of Minnesota-Crookston in a home meet, winning 7-0.
Young said Crookston is a team that comes back with the same competitiveness and mentality every year.
“I don’t know how to phrase this nicely, but with Crookston they haven’t had a lot of success, so we pretty much just have to play our game,” Young said.
All three sets of doubles won their matches for the first time this season with ending scores of 6-0.
As for singles, every player won their respective match, making it a day full of wins.
The following afternoon on Sunday, Feb. 28, the Warriors went up against Bemidji State at home, winning 6-1.
Young said she does not know what the team should expect with the upcoming matches against the Bemidji State Beavers.
“Bemidji, they have a lot of newcomers that we don’t really know a lot about so I would say we just have to prepare mentally because we don’t know what to expect,” Young said. “We, again, just have to play our game with that one and kind of just try and take control since we don’t know what they are good at; we just have to use our strengths and hope that it will overcome whatever they throw at us,” Young said.
After this weekend, the Winona State tennis team now has a record of 4-2.
Holloway said she looks forward to seeing how the rest of this coming season will work out for the Warriors.
“As I look forward toward each and every day to come this season, I am especially ready for us to show up at our conference tournament,” Holloway said. “We plan to overcome all adversity and this year is going to be better than the last.”
The Warriors come back on March 20 to take on the Upper Iowa University Peacocks at home with matches starting at 4:30 p.m.