’Hawks take on Samford, Wright State

By Scott Sutton, For The Miami Student

Miami University tennis has two matches this weekend. On Saturday, the RedHawks travel to Lexington, Ky. to take on Samford University (3-4), and on Sunday, they'll return to Hamilton, Ohio for a match against Wright State University (5-1).

The RedHawks (3-4) are returning from a split weekend in Lincoln, Neb. where they fell 4-3 to University of Nebraska (9-1) but defeated University of Memphis (1-7), 5-2.

Freshman Emily Struble leads the team in wins with an overall record of 17-6. She has a 9-1 record in her last 10 matches.

"We have been focusing a lot on building off our last win against Memphis," Struble said. "We want to keep improving our consistency and speed and make sure that we go into every practice and every match with a focused and positive attitude."

Freshman Anzhelika Shapovalova went 3-1 against Nebraska and Memphis, teaming up with sophomore Hannah Shteyn to earn Miami's lone doubles victory and earning her second victory this season over a Big Ten No. 1 singles player.

Shapovalova was named Mid-American Conference Singles Tennis Player of the Week for the second time this season. She was also nominated Miami's athlete of the week the past two weeks.

Second year head coach Yana Carollo is happy with the way her team has been playing. She believes her team has what it takes to match or even surpass last season, when the team went 16-7 in Carollo's first season as head coach and appeared in the NCAA Women's Tennis Championship for the third consecutive time.

"We are working on improving execution of our strength patterns in both singles and doubles," Carollo said. "It looks like doubles is our crucial point versus major teams, so we need to make it known this weekend. We are very competitive with major teams in singles. The team did a better job in staying mentally stronger during matches at Nebraska. So with that in mind, we want to continue building on that improvement."

Match play versus Samford begins at 12 p.m. Feb. 27 at the University of Kentucky. Sunday's match against Wright State begins at 4 p.m. Feb. 28 at the Riverside Athletic Club.