Long Beach State women’s tennis will play in the Beach Invitational, its second preseason tournament, at the Rhodes Tennis Center Oct. 11 through 13. The Beach is coming off a successful showing at the UNLV Fall Tournament, where the team went 24-5 overall in a three-day stretch. Sophomore Zara Lennon was a standout of the team’s success, going 6-0 in all her matches.
“Afterwards [the coaching staff will] have a debriefing with each player and tell them what they did very well and look at areas where we can be better for the next match,” head coach Jenny Hilt-Costello said. “We do that to hopefully strengthen their game and make them feel empowered.”
After the success at UNLV, Hilt-Costello said she does not feel a need to run the same lineups over again, particularly in doubles.
“We changed two of the doubles teams to give them a peak [and see how it goes],” Hilt-Costello said. “In the fall we do that a lot… [we] just take a look at different teams and see where they are at.”
Lineups subject to change leaves room for the roster to build connections together.
Hilt-Costello is using the preseason to experiment with lineups.
“We came back happy and ready to practice more,” sophomore Wiktoria Rutkowska said. “And now that we don’t have any freshmen, we don’t make the same easy and stupid mistakes … it just makes it a lot easier.”
With the team’s largest issue last year being its inexperience, Long Beach plans to show its progress this season, spending its duos practice working on communication on the court.
Long Beach will host the Beach Invitational all-day Oct. 11 through 13.