TEMPE, Ariz. – The Arizona State women's tennis program gets back to the courts, as they travel east for the Tennessee Fall Invitational in Knoxville, Tenn. for the three-day round robin format starting on Friday afternoon.
2016 Pac-12 Coach of the Year Sheila McInerney takes her team back to the annual tournament for the second-straight year, which will feature Ohio State, Wake Forest and Tennessee.
"I think this weekend is a whole different test," said McInerney. "The first tournament this fall was about getting our feet wet, but now it's a little bit more of a team standpoint. Every day you're going to play a doubles match and a singles match, and it's going to be someone of your caliber. So you're going to get to see where you're at from a team perspective."
The rare format is nearly the opposite from the Cal Nike Invitational, where the Devils last played over three weeks ago. As coach McInerney said, the format will allow her team to see how they stack up with three doubles matches and six singles matches – something that they can evaluate more closely before hitting the ground running in just under three months.
The Devils kick the weekend off with doubles against Ohio State on Friday at 1 p.m. (EST), who finished the 2016 season ranked No. 6 as a program. They'll then follow that up with singles against Tennessee at 2 p.m. (EST). On Saturday, they'll again play the Lady Volunteers, but this time in doubles before playing Wake Forest in singles that afternoon. Sunday morning at 10 a.m. (EST), ASU will play Ohio State in singles before bouncing back with doubles versus Wake Forest that afternoon at 1 p.m. (EST).
The last three weeks since the Cal Nike Invite has consisted of one-on-one work mixed in with practices to focus specifics of each individual's game.
"It's a nice luxury to have three weeks to work on certain things and get each kid's game better," said McInerney. "Two more tournaments and then we're done for the fall until January. It's been really good and it's at a time now that we're antsy and couldn't go another week without competing."
Senior Kassidy Jump and sophomore Sammi Hampton are the only returning players who played together in doubles, and that showed three weeks ago as they were runners up at the Cal Nike Invite.
Pac-12 Champion Alex Osborne showed great chemistry with freshman Savannah Slaysman, who McInerney raves about having advanced doubles skills for a rookie.
Junior transfer Nicole Fossa Huergo will make her season debut for the Devils after transferring from two-time NCAA Division II National Champion Armstrong State.
Progress is all McInerney wants to see this week, as she expects to know a lot more about her squad after this weekend.
"We're still very much a work in progress and a long way to go to where we were a year ago," she said. "We've been working on high-percentage first serves and returns. If you can serve well and return well, you will play well in doubles. We need to be more aggressive on our returns."
McInerney is coming off one of her best seasons in 32 years at ASU, finishing fourth in the conference with an 8-4 record. Those eight wins included victories over Stanford for the second time ever in program history and a road win over UCLA for the first time since 1997.
The Devils will play at home for the first time on Nov. 4-6 for the ASU Thunderbird Invitational.
TENNESSEE FALL INVITATIONAL SCHEDULE (Oct. 28-30)
Friday:
Doubles vs. Ohio State - 1 p.m. (EST)
Singles vs. Tennessee - 2 p.m. (EST)
Saturday:
Doubles vs. Tennessee - 1 p.m. (EST)
Singles vs. Wake Forest - 2 p.m.
Sunday:
Singles vs. Ohio State - 10 a.m. (EST)
Doubles vs. Wake Forest - 1 p.m. (EST)
2016 Pac-12 Coach of the Year Sheila McInerney takes her team back to the annual tournament for the second-straight year, which will feature Ohio State, Wake Forest and Tennessee.
"I think this weekend is a whole different test," said McInerney. "The first tournament this fall was about getting our feet wet, but now it's a little bit more of a team standpoint. Every day you're going to play a doubles match and a singles match, and it's going to be someone of your caliber. So you're going to get to see where you're at from a team perspective."
The rare format is nearly the opposite from the Cal Nike Invitational, where the Devils last played over three weeks ago. As coach McInerney said, the format will allow her team to see how they stack up with three doubles matches and six singles matches – something that they can evaluate more closely before hitting the ground running in just under three months.
The Devils kick the weekend off with doubles against Ohio State on Friday at 1 p.m. (EST), who finished the 2016 season ranked No. 6 as a program. They'll then follow that up with singles against Tennessee at 2 p.m. (EST). On Saturday, they'll again play the Lady Volunteers, but this time in doubles before playing Wake Forest in singles that afternoon. Sunday morning at 10 a.m. (EST), ASU will play Ohio State in singles before bouncing back with doubles versus Wake Forest that afternoon at 1 p.m. (EST).
The last three weeks since the Cal Nike Invite has consisted of one-on-one work mixed in with practices to focus specifics of each individual's game.
"It's a nice luxury to have three weeks to work on certain things and get each kid's game better," said McInerney. "Two more tournaments and then we're done for the fall until January. It's been really good and it's at a time now that we're antsy and couldn't go another week without competing."
Senior Kassidy Jump and sophomore Sammi Hampton are the only returning players who played together in doubles, and that showed three weeks ago as they were runners up at the Cal Nike Invite.
Pac-12 Champion Alex Osborne showed great chemistry with freshman Savannah Slaysman, who McInerney raves about having advanced doubles skills for a rookie.
Junior transfer Nicole Fossa Huergo will make her season debut for the Devils after transferring from two-time NCAA Division II National Champion Armstrong State.
Progress is all McInerney wants to see this week, as she expects to know a lot more about her squad after this weekend.
"We're still very much a work in progress and a long way to go to where we were a year ago," she said. "We've been working on high-percentage first serves and returns. If you can serve well and return well, you will play well in doubles. We need to be more aggressive on our returns."
McInerney is coming off one of her best seasons in 32 years at ASU, finishing fourth in the conference with an 8-4 record. Those eight wins included victories over Stanford for the second time ever in program history and a road win over UCLA for the first time since 1997.
The Devils will play at home for the first time on Nov. 4-6 for the ASU Thunderbird Invitational.
TENNESSEE FALL INVITATIONAL SCHEDULE (Oct. 28-30)
Friday:
Doubles vs. Ohio State - 1 p.m. (EST)
Singles vs. Tennessee - 2 p.m. (EST)
Saturday:
Doubles vs. Tennessee - 1 p.m. (EST)
Singles vs. Wake Forest - 2 p.m.
Sunday:
Singles vs. Ohio State - 10 a.m. (EST)
Doubles vs. Wake Forest - 1 p.m. (EST)