Tennis teams heads to Tulsa for Wilson Invite
The men’s and women’s tennis teams will play in the Wilson Invitational this weekend. The men’s invitational takes place in Las Vegas, Nev., while the women will play in Tulsa, Okla.
“It gives us a chance to play some new people,” Wright said of the invitational. “You can only play your own teammates so many times.”
The women’s invitational features more than 30 teams from the Big Ten, Mountain West, Big Sky, and the Western Athletic conferences. Utah State Head Coach Christian Wright said that because so many teams will be competing at the invitational, they could only take three players.
Jill Smith will be playing singles for the Aggies women, while Lindsey Bennion and Carolyn Stephens will be the lone doubles team representing the Aggies.
The men’s invitational is smaller with only 16 teams attending.
The whole of Utah State’s men’s team will get to compete, except for the injured Jonas Tyden.
Only two players on the USU team have had experience at the Wilson Invitational. Junior Hannes Schenk and sophomore Lukas Bouton.
Wright said the Wilson Invitational is a good fall tournament because it gives the players a good look at the regional competition they will have in the spring.
In both invitationals, Wright said, it will be a good opportunity to gain more experience and also to see how well doubles teams play together.
Wright said the women’s draw will be extremely difficult because of the competition they will have to play against.
“We have some talent,” Wright said. “We just need to put it all together in our matches.”
The key to the matches will have to be patience and working points to the players’ favor, Wright said.
The Aggies would also need to plan the match well so they don’t try to do too much too early, he said.
Play was supposed to have begun on Wednesday at both sites, but because of unusually heavy and constant raining in Las Vegas, the matched was postponed for the Utah State men.
Jill Smith was the lone Aggie to compete Wednesday. She fell to Lucy Scott of New Mexico in two sets 6-1, 6-4.
The matches for the invitational will run through Sunday.
-krn@cc.usu.edu