doddhern@grinnell.edu

The Grinnell women’s tennis team is preparing for competition at the Midwest Conference, their first with the new Coach Paige Madara since she came from Washington University in St. Louis and Washington Lee University. The team has changed their training routines and set new goals in preparation for the season. 

“We have both on-court goals and off-court goals,” said team Co-Captain Rachel Tappe ’19. “A short term goal of ours is beating St. Norbert, which we play this weekend. One of the long-term goals we have is making it to the second round of nationals. We also have off-court goals such as become a closer and more supportive team, which I think we’ve already come close to achieving.” 

The team has already competed in two matches and a scrimmage since school began, with a mixed bag of results. 

  “We had two matches and a scrimmage a couple of weekends back,” co-captain Lily Hamilton ’19 said. “One of which was against Augustana, which is a very good program. We lost to them 1-8, but every match was competitive, which I think surprised them and was good. We also played St. Ambrose College and beat them 8-1, so it was good to build our confidence with that first winning match.”

Lily Hamilton ’19 hits the ball with all her might.

After playing St. Ambrose College, the team went up against and tied with Coe College, who had beaten them in the first round of nationals last year. 

“That was kind of a good indicator of where we are at right now in the season. It gave us some motivation to strive ahead and not just match up with them, but also beat them,” Hamilton said.

With only 12 players, the team graduated three of their starting lineup players and added two first-year players. 

“Last year, we had six freshmen, four of whom play in the lineup right now,” co-captain Anushka Joshi ’18 said. “We only have two seniors. So we will have a young team this year of mostly second-years, but it looks promising. Usually, the team doesn’t perform as well in the beginning of the year, and then by conference, we are really good, but this year the team already looks super promising from the beginning.”

The team’s next game is against Lake Forest College on Sept. 10 at 9 a.m.

“We’ve definitely set a goal to beat Lake Forest,” Joshi said. “Throughout the course of last season, Lake Forest won one more set in matches, which determined them as the winner, which is a very frustrating way to lose the conference title. This year we are very set on beating them.”