The Drake University women’s tennis team picked up 10 wins at the Drake invite.
For the first tournament of the fall season, Drake women’s tennis competed at home. The tournament took place over a span of three days and was filled with lots of competition.
The Bulldogs started off the tournament on Friday, Sept. 16, with three doubles matches. Sophomore Mille Hagensen and freshman Elizabete Klavinska picked up a doubles win for Drake on the first day of competition.
Heading into singles for the first day, each player played two singles matches. Millie Hagensen and senior Rebecca Ehn both picked up wins for Drake.
Heading into the second day of competition, Drake planned to compete in another doubles match as well as two singles matches.
Due to poor weather, the format for the day had to be adjusted to only singles matches. Each singles match that was played was an eight game pro-set in comparison to a regular match which is the best two out of three sets. This change was due to only being able to use the indoor courts because of the bad weather.
There was also a change to the brackets for the tournament due to the weather. Instead of having a full compass style draw, the tournament changed to double elimination, meaning that once a player lost two matches they would then be out of the tournament.
During the second day of competition Hagensen picked up a singles win, the same as senior Kendall Hunt. Klavinska and Ehn each picked up two singles wins.
“Even though we didn’t get to play the original format of the matches, it was great that we were able to get through the day and pick up some wins,” Hunt said. “It was difficult to wait around for a long time since there were so many matches to be played before we had to go on.”
The third day of the tournament had better weather. The Bulldogs were able to play both singles and doubles matches. On the third day Drake won two doubles matches, Hunt and Nicole Lee won their singles set 6-0 and both Ehn and Ines Stephani won their doubles set 7-6.
Mille Hagensen also picked up a singles win for the Bulldogs on the final day of competition. Drake concluded the tournament on Sunday after successfully picking up 10 matches.
“This was a good start to the year,” Ehn said. “The team was happy to be able to get some matches in before the MVC individual tournament.”
The Bulldogs now have a couple weeks without competition, so they will be practicing to get ready for the remaining three tournaments for this fall season.
Head Coach McManus shared his thoughts on the upcoming weeks for the Bulldogs.
“We are ready to get back to work these next couple of weeks,” McManus said. “The team is working hard every day to be ready for each weekend of competition that we have.”
The Bulldogs will next compete in the Missouri Valley Conference Individual tournament at Missouri State.
