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Women's Tennis
Coach Wood's 2007-08 Season Preview
Sept. 17, 2007
The URI women's tennis program is looking forward to another outstanding year. Last season was the strongest in URI history as we compiled a 15-6 record, while winning the New England Open, the ECAC Championships and the URI Shootout. We also had two players, Lara Maurer and Nyssa Peele, selected as Atlantic 10 All Conference and Grace Hedstrom earned Academic All Conference as well. We also won all the close matches going four and zero in the tight 4-3 matches. In short, it was a nearly perfect season in which we reached our full potential. We are entering the upcoming season full of confidence as we return our full rotation with the exception of Lara Maurer who will be difficult to replace at the top spot. In the fall semester, we will also be without Valerie Chacon, last year's number two, who is studying in France. That being said, we do have a strong nucleus with Junior Grace Hedstrom, and Sophomores Nyssa Peele, Amanda Barletta and Stef Catanzano, who were all starters last season. Senior Whitney Squires will be vying for playing time, along with five new faces. Freshmen Christen Cadigan, Brooke Hoover, Kristen Liu plus Rhode Islanders Haleigh Creamer and Sophomore transfer Kiranya Tipirneni are all strong players. With our added depth, I anticipate our team to be just as strong as last year.
We've had a wonderful first week of training. The weather has been perfect for tennis, and we've been putting in solid 2-3 hour days. The first step is to work on grooving strokes and adding consistency. We are now moving into controlling the amount of spin that we put on the ball. This is crucial to developing an all court game, allowing the players to attack in different ways against different opponents and their varying styles. The next step is to hone our strategic point play and practice various patterns of attack and defense. We'll also spend a great deal of time working on the elements of doubles and doubles strategy. The women are progressing nicely along our progression and are mastering the skills necessary to learn in the fall season. After an intense week of training, we took our first day off today. We had a team trip to Newport, where we toured Rosecliff, one of the famous Newport mansions. (See the picture below.) It is a spectacular mansion, patterned after the French and Italian château's. It boggles the imagination to witness the opulence and lifestyle of the super wealthy in the early 1900's. The next stop was back to my house on the water in Jamestown for a sumptuous cookout put together by my wife, Bambi. It was a nice day for the girls to relax, get to know each other better, go tubing behind the boat, swimming, and just hang out. Tomorrow we'll back on court, but hopefully both physically and mentally rested. We have five home matches this fall in addition to a busy tournament schedule. Please come out and support this fine young team. The updated schedule is on www.GoRhody.com Call or e-mail anytime to talk tennis. Best wishes, Coach Sandy Wood
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 HEAD COACH: VAL VILLUCCI
WOMEN'S TENNIS LINKS
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