After dropping a 6-1 decision to Indiana last weekend, the Ball State men’s tennis team looks to get back to its winning ways this weekend when they face nationally ranked Brown Friday and in-state opponent IUPUI Sunday.
Ball State’s loss to the Indiana last Sunday snapped a three-game win streak in which it swept its opponents 21-0.
During practice this week, Ball State coach Bill Richards approached each player on an individual basis.
“Our major focus is sharpening up the little things in our game that have been problem areas,” Richards said.
In singles play against Indiana, Ray Leonard and Dalton Albertin both were able to win a set, but were unable to close their opponents out. The Cardinals top two singles players will need to finish their matches strong this weekend for the team to come away victorious.
The Cardinals, who have already played six matches this season, are also fighting the injury bug.
“Most importantly though is getting healthy, we have a lot of guys that are really banged up right now,” Richards said. “We’ve played a lot of tennis in the first four weeks of the school year, were just trying to recover and be healthy as we go into the weekend.”
That will be harder said than done.
“This has been kind of a hectic week because it’s a short week with a match last Sunday and then a match right away Friday and another one Sunday,” Richards said.
The Cardinals week won’t get any easier as they face stiff competition this weekend.
“These teams are better than the teams we’ve beaten 7-0, so these will be much tougher matches,” Richards said.
No. 61 Brown brings a two game win streak to Muncie as they begin their two game series against Indiana opponents. They’ll face the Hoosiers Saturday afternoon.
“Brown on paper is the tougher of the two, their nationally ranked; a good strong team from the Ivy League,” Richards said. “The Ivy League is very strong tennis conference from top to bottom,”
Sophomore Daniel Hirschberg went 3-0 in Brown’s sweep of Binghamton and Quinnipiac last weekend. The Cardinals could counter with junior Austin Smith who has won four straight including capturing the only point for Ball State against the Hoosiers.
IUPUI has yet to win a match this season but has battled some quality in-state opponents. The Jaguars played tough matches against Purdue, No. 30 Notre Dame and No. 33 Indiana.
“For us to be successful this weekend everyone’s going to have to go out and be very tough mentally and emotionally, as well as physically,” Richards said. “It will be a challenging weekend because they’re two very good teams, so it’ll be interesting to see how we do.”
