Amid the women’s tennis team’s only losing streak of the season thus far, IU Head Coach Ramiro Azcui said his squad was in dire need of momentum.
The losing streak fell to three games when IU lost to Princeton University on Feb. 23, but the team would find the momentum it was looking for the next day with a comeback win over DePaul University.
Now at 7-5 overall, IU is set for a double-header this Saturday when it plays Cornell University at 10:30 a.m. and Miami University at 6 p.m. at the IU Tennis Center.
“A double-header is always tough,” Azcui said. “I’m not as worried about their fatigue this weekend as I am their mental game and execution though.”
Should the Hoosiers ride this wave of momentum to a pair of wins this weekend, they’d be 9-5 heading into conference play next week.
“Big Ten play is right around the corner, so it’s hard not to look at that, but we’re going to focus on these two matches and how we go from there,” Azcui said.
Cornell is 3-6 and has yet to win away from its home courts, but it is coming off a 4-3 win over University of Colorado Boulder. With the Big Red finding the win column last weekend, the Hoosiers know they have to stay on their toes and treat this competition like any other.
"We have to be prepared and have lots of intensity regardless of how hungry our competition is for a win,” senior Natalie Whalen said. “If we’re playing one in the nation versus someone that doesn’t have a ranking, we have to play with the same intensity and confidence.”
Miami is 2-6 and shares four nonconference opponents with IU. The Redhawks lost all four of those matches while the Hoosiers split them, going 2-2. Like Cornell, Miami is also coming off a win, but a bigger storyline heading into its tilt with IU is its recent history in Bloomington.
On Feb. 4, 2017, Miami came into the IU Tennis Center to hand Azcui’s squad its second consecutive loss at home in his first year as coach. The Hoosiers responded with a win over the Redhawks in 2018, but that doesn’t give them any reason to feel comfortable this weekend.
“Sometimes a team with a losing record will come out even more because they don’t have as much to lose,” Azcui said. “I think both Cornell and Miami could present similar challenges as DePaul did here last weekend.”
