Tennis Heads for Warmer Weather

The men’s and women’s tennis teams will hit the road next week for their annual spring break training trips, which will be both teams’ final tune-ups before Ivy play begins the following weekend. The men, currently ranked 62nd nationally, will travel to Texas to take on Texas Christian University, Southern Methodist University and University of Texas-Arlington, while the women will travel out west to California to take on Loyola Marymount, Cal State Fullerton and Cal State Northridge.

The men will begin their trip by taking on TCU, which enters ranked ahead of Columbia and 43rd in the nation. Last season, the Lions lost 5-2 in a closely contested match, when TCU was ranked 28th. One big issue for Columbia will be playing outdoors, since the team practices and plays its home matches indoors at the Dick Savitt Tennis Center.

“We have been going [on the road] for the last eight or nine years,” Bid Goswami, men’s head tennis coach, said, “much to the boys’ chagrin, but we are not going for a spring break trip. We work hard and we get a lot of outdoor courts. That’s my first goal, because I don’t know where we might play outside [during Ivy play].”

The Lions have historically struggled when transitioning outdoors, something the head coach hopes to address during the trip rather than during league play.

“We just want to get used to playing some outdoor matches,” Goswami continued.

“Unfortunately I don’t think we play as well as we play indoors since we have been playing indoors since October, so we play 10-15 percent worse [outside].”

Last year, the Lions played the same opponents and went 0-3. They lost 5-2 to TCU, 4-3 to UT Arlington and 6-1 to Southern Methodist, which was ranked 56th nationally at the time. Sophomore Kevin Kung was a standout on the trip, going 3-0 in singles.

“There’s no pressure on us [because of their ranking],” Goswami said, “the other teams are as good as us and they are chomping at the bit to play us so they have a chance to get ranked.”

“If we beat them at their place, it’s a good win for us,” Goswami continued, “and if we lose, it is not a bad loss. More than anything else, we get used to playing outside and we’ll play matches in which we will be right there.”

The women will travel to California this year after spending the break in Florida last season.

“Last year when we were planning the trip, we wanted to go to California because all of these teams were ranked between 60 and 75,” head coach Ilene Weintraub said. “I was looking to schedule matches in which we could be competitive and win so that we could get ranked.”
This season, however, Columbia’s three opponents have fallen out of the top 75 nationally, but remain on the fringes of a national ranking and should provide tough competition throughout the lineup for the young Lions team.

“Cal State Fullerton is a winnable match,” Weintraub said, “and Loyola will be a tough match. I kind of like the order in which we play, since we play the stronger team, than the weaker team and then the team which will be close with. If we win, I think we will get a lot of confidence.”

Nevertheless, the women will be training hard throughout the duration of the trip in order to prepare for Ivy play. “We will train twice a day when not playing matches,” Weintraub said, “this is one last full-speed-ahead training trip so we can feel very grooved on our fitness and strokes before Ivy play.”

The women will first play on March 15 against Loyola Marymount, and the men will face TCU on March 17.