Women's Tennis Season Preview
January 22, 2010 | Women's Tennis
GREENVILLE,N.C. -With a 15-7 finish last season, the East Carolina women's tennis program looks to continue improving on its previous success.
The Pirates can count on the leadership of a winning head coach to keep them victorious. In 11 years leading ECU, Tom Morris has compiled 407 wins. In August, he was selected as a Class of 2010 inductee into the North Carolina Tennis Hall of Fame.
This season, Morris' team returns six of its eight letterwinners, creating depth and experience. The Pirates also added three freshmen and a transfer who sat out last season.
Key returners for the women's squad are senior's Brooke Walter, junior Jessica Cook and sophomore Natalie Collins. Walter will be looked to for leadership after turning in the Pirates highest duel singles win total (19-2) last season. In spring doubles play Walter went 13-8 overall. Cook was highly successful in the number one spot in 2008-09 with a record of 10-9 while Collins dominated the number three spot with a record of 11-4.
"Our success this year will depend greatly on our doubles play, as well as our ability to compete at the top of the lineup," Morris said. "This team has some great athletes. It will be critical that we start to win matches in the one and two positions."
Also returning for East Carolina are juniors Kristin Gordon, Tamara Sachs and senior Sheelah Iyengar. Gordon recorded a 3-2 record in the No. 5 and No.6 position last year while combining for 4-2 in doubles play while Sachs turned in an overall 14-6 record during spring play and an overall 15-6 record in doubles action. Iyengar looks to stay perfect after going 5-0 in both singles and doubles play during the Pirates 2008-09 spring campaign.
Freshmen Petra Vogel and Yilian Zhang showed promise this fall, both finishing the season with a 1-1 mark in singles. Classmate Abby Richmond was a three-time all-state and all-conference honoree in high school. As a junior, she advanced to the state singles finals.
High Point transfer Audrey LePottier rounds out the new players on this year's squad. LePottier was held out of action last season due to NCAA transfer rules. Both Richmond and LePottier fell in one match during the fall campaign.
"We only played one tournament this past fall, so we haven't had a chance to see our freshmen play other than that one time," Morris said. "They are a bit untested. However, I am very encouraged with the level of talent from our freshmen, as well as the hard work from the entire team this past fall."
East Carolina faced top competition in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Regional Championships at Wake Forest this fall. The tough task helped prepare them for a long and challenging season.
"Without question, this year's schedule is the most difficult in our program's history, but a very important one for us to continue to improve," Morris explained. "I feel this year's team is more talented than many of our former squads and is working very hard to get even better."
Despite not having more opportunities to compete in the fall, the time was used to re-evaluate and strengthen the teams existing skills.
"I feel this fall was a very important time that we used to focus on improving our doubles teams, our conditioning and our other individual weaknesses," Morris said.
League play will be a challenging for the Pirates as Conference USA boasts six schools with ITA national preseason rankings.
East Carolina will play 30 regular season matches, hosting 12 duals and traveling for 18 other contests. Highlights to the schedule include an international trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the middle of the season and ending with a Conference USA 2008-09 quarterfinal rematch against UCF.
