The Iowa Hawkeyes women’s tennis team closes out its fall season with a tournament close to home, the Drake Jamboree. The tournament will be at the Roger Knapp Tennis Center in Des Moines and is set to begin Friday and run through Oc. 26.
Teams slated to compete at the tournament with the Hawkeyes are Creighton, Kansas State, Nebraska, SIUE, and Drake. Iowa played very well in this tournament last year with sophomore Aimee Tarun and seniors Katie Zordani and Ellen Silver finishing singles titles.
“It’s our last fall tournament and we want to end on a high-note,” Zordani said.
The senior, who was sick and unable to compete in the regional tournament last weekend, also expressed that she was looking for good results both team-wise and individually in this last tournament of the fall season. She said the team is looking forward to continually improving its fitness and getting these last few matches in the fall under its belt before moving closer to the spring season.
Morven McCulloch commented on the quick turn-around from road-to-court at this tournament.
“What will be challenging for the girls that are traveling this weekend will be that they leave Friday and play Friday,” McCulloch said. “So they’ll leave Friday morning and then they play at eleven on Friday. So they’ve got to get their legs ready and be prepared to walk on the court.”
The senior also said she and the other two seniors who competed in the last tournament, Ellen Silver and Shelby Talcott, were pretty beat after the weekend.
“Our legs were pretty tired, but after this tournament the team won’t have to taper-down the conditioning anymore to get ready for competitions, at least not for awhile,” she said.
Talcott said the part of the team that is going probably will have cut-down on its conditioning in the two ore three days before the tournament.
“You don’t usually want to go too hard right before. You want to be fresh,” she said.
Talcott also said she could see the conditioning working for the benefit of the team. She said whereas it used to take a few days to recover from the stiffness and soreness that comes after play, now it is only taking about a day for that pain to dissolve.
The Hawks are looking for some good experience and some good wins this weekend to cap off their fall season. Tarun and Zordani had major successes at last year’s Drake Jamboree and are returning this year with ambitions of playing great tennis and earning victories in mind.
"We have the opportunity to try out more doubles combos and get a lot of match play,” Dougherty said in a release. “Zordani was sick last weekend and didn’t get to go to Regionals and we’ll be looking to her and Dohanics to lead the group this weekend."
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