The Ball State women’s tennis team started the season strong, owning a 5-1 record, including wins over Valparaiso, Michigan State and Cleveland State.
The team showed few signs of problems with the transition of new head coach Max Norris this year.
“I’ve really been impressed by the girls’ level of play, their consistency and the way that they have been able to adapt to my coaching style,” Norris said. “It feels less a transition than it does feel as a new season, and we take it as that.”
Many of the players have had impressive matches and moments already this year, including junior Courtney Wild’s comeback win against Michigan State and sophomore Courtney Earnest winning her match at Kentucky, a school Norris said told Earnest she wasn’t good enough to defeat.
However, Norris could not name a single player who has not impressed him this season.
“They’ve all impressed at some point during the season,” he said.
The team will host Cincinnati on Feb. 15, and Norris is making sure to continue to challenge his players until then.
“I always make a point to challenge the girls at practice,” he said. “And with the tryout of this new playing style ending this week, I have to prepare the girls for possibly having to play longer.”
The team played in a six-game pro-set in doubles matches and a two-set match with a third-set tiebreaker in singles matches. It will now return to an eight-game pro-set in doubles and a regular three-set match in singles.
Mid-American Conference competition is still a few weeks away, and Norris is making sure the team doesn’t treat the non-conference matches as unimportant games.
“If you treat any match as more important than other matches, you will make more mistakes and get more emotional,” he said. “That is something I am trying to have the girls avoid. … We may not be the most talented team or have the best record toward the end of the season, but we will do what we can to make sure we competed and controlled what we could control.”
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