At the beginning of its fall season last year, the women's tennis team had to fill the holes in its lineup left by four graduated seniors. By the spring, the Jumbos were down to seven players after still more turnover on their roster. But as it prepares to kick off its 2008 season today, Tufts finally has something it missed all of last year: a little stability.
The Jumbos will travel to MIT this weekend for the ITA Regional Championships boasting a squad that is returning all but one player from last year's team. Coming off a spring in which they reached the semifinals of the NESCAC Tournament and qualified for the NCAA Championships, the Jumbos are glad nearly all of them will all be back as they try to build off their success.
"We're definitely really excited to have most of our team coming back," junior captain Meghan McCooey said. "We did make strides, and we improved a lot last year, so it's great then that almost everyone is coming back because we can start right from where we left off."
A pair of All-Americans — McCooey and sophomore Julia Browne — will once again anchor Tufts' singles lineup after going a combined 23-8 out of the first and second spots last season. The Jumbos are expecting much from Browne, who captured both the NESCAC and Northeast Rookie of the Year awards last season and finished the spring as the No. 15 singles player in the nation.
"I think there's absolutely no limit to what she can do," coach Kate Bayard said. "We're working on developing her net game a little more, and once she starts coming to the net significantly more, she can beat anyone out there."
Just one spot behind Browne in the rankings was McCooey, who capped off her spring season with a run to the semifinals of the Div. III singles championship, upsetting two ranked players, including the tournament's second seed, along the way.
"That actually gave me a lot more confidence going into this year," McCooey said. "I believed that I could beat those top players last year, but now that I've actually done it, it's really made me feel like every time I go on the court, I can beat the player that I'm facing."
Behind Browne and McCooey, however, Tufts will have some holes to fill in its singles lineup, at least for the fall. In addition to the departure of last season's lone senior, Andrea Cenko (LA '08), the Jumbos will be without junior Erica Miller and senior Mari Homma, both of whom are spending the semester abroad. Before Miller and Homma return for the spring season, Tufts will rely in part on its large freshman class — Jennifer LaCara, Jennifer Lavet, Kaitlyn Pritchard and Nathalie Schils — to help fill the void.
"We're really lucky to get a lot of new, solid freshmen who can help us out," McCooey said. "They've all shown that they all have a lot to offer the team. They've got great and very different games, and they're all going to play a major role in what we can accomplish this year."
On the doubles side, Bayard plans to pair McCooey with Browne and Lavet with sophomore Edwina Stewart. But in an abbreviated fall season without any major events, Bayard says the focus will be more on honing skills than determining lineups.
"I have a plan for some doubles teams that I'm going to stick with in the fall, but things might very well switch up once Erica and Mari come back in the spring," she said. "The fall's much more about developing our doubles skills rather than determining the doubles teams, and working on our serving and volleying, on using the modified I-formation a little more and on net play and volley technique. I know in the spring we'll mix things up anyway, so for now I'd just like them to have a doubles foundation."
Like always, Tufts will play a limited schedule in the fall, featuring just two dual matches and two individual tournaments. With all of the major championship events slated for the spring, the coming months will be used to prepare for the competition.
"If we can just get a bunch of matches under our belts in the fall, check out the competition and compete really well against it, it'll definitely satisfy our goals and help us in our spring season," Browne said.
Given the competitiveness of the NESCAC, the Jumbos will take any headstart they can get. The conference had five teams in the top 13 of last season's final national rankings, including reigning NCAA champion Williams at No. 2 and three-time defending NESCAC champion Amherst at No. 3.
But Tufts showed signs last year of breaking the stranglehold the Ephs and Jeffs have had on the conference in recent seasons, twice losing to Amherst in matches that were closer than they looked on paper.
The Jumbos are hopeful that they can make the jump to the NESCAC's elite this season.
"Definitely Williams and Amherst have always separated themselves from the rest of the NESCAC, but each year we seem to be getting closer and closer to beating them," Browne said. "Last year, it was a matter of a couple matches that separated us from Amherst, so we're definitely ready to take over. Each year we get stronger, and considering that this year we lost only one player, this could definitely be our year to do that."
