Home atmosphere leads to wins for IU womens tennis

In their first home tournament of the year, the No. 24 IU women’s tennis team racked up wins on their home court. The team competed in the Hoosier Classic this weekend, where they won three singles flights out of a possible 10.\nJuniors Alba Berdala, Sigrid Fischer and Stephanie Heller all reached the singles finals and won the last match of their flights.\nSenior Brianna Williams also reached the finals, but came up short in her last match, finishing second. Williams reached the finals in the team’s last tournament – the Deacon Classic – as well.\n“I think I did good,” Williams said. “I think it was a really challenging match for me. It was really good for me to play a better opponent. Even though I lost, I feel I competed well.”\nWilliams added that she thinks the level of competition at the Classic – the field included No. 4 Georgia, Indiana State, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kansas State, No. 16 Vanderbilt and Western Michigan – was good for the Hoosiers. \n“It was definitely a lot harder competition,” Williams said. “I think that was good for us, to get used to playing harder players.”\nHeller agreed that the tournament was “very tough.”\nIU coach Lin Loring said he was pleased with the team’s singles results.\n“Overall, I thought we did a good job in singles,” Loring said. “I saw some \nimprovement.”\nHaving only completed their second tournament of the year, the Hoosiers are still experimenting with doubles combinations.\nHowever, Loring said he was not as pleased by the overall doubles results.\n“I thought the doubles, we were pretty up and down,” Loring said. “We did some good things, and we had some poor performances. That was a little disappointing, because we were kind of up and down. We have some things we need to work on with doubles.”\nThe team will have to wait to display their improvement. Instead of competing at the ITA All-American Championship on Thursday in California, the team is heading to the Vanderbilt Invitational at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., in two weeks. \n“It will be similar to this (tournament),” Loring said. “It’s going to be a really good tournament. We’re getting more match play (at the Vanderbilt Invitational) than we would at the regional tournament (in California).”\nBoth Williams and Heller said playing at home was a positive change from their previous out-of-town \ntournaments.\n“It was definitely nice,” Williams said. “We had some fans and some parents. It was nice we didn’t have to travel and be exhausted after. Just to have the support of the fans out there was really good.”\nHeller said family support made a difference for \nthe Hoosiers.\n“I feel like playing at home was really to our advantage this weekend,” Heller said. “A lot of parents were able to come out.”\nCoach Loring, on the other hand, downplayed the home atmosphere.\n“I don’t think it really mattered that much,” Loring said. “When you’re in an open tournament like this one, I don’t think it matters that much.”\nEven though the team still has work to do, the players are optimistic about the Vanderbilt Invitational.\n “I feel like we just need a little bit more time,” Heller said. “We’ve been playing around (with combinations). ... I just feel we need to practice and work hard and the rest will come.”