The men’s tennis team competed in its first tournament of the fall season in Fort Smith, Ark., at the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith Men’s Invitational, Sept. 12-13. They lost their first round match to UAFS 8-2 but rebounded to take the second from them 6-1.
Harding competed in round-robin format against singles and doubles teams from Oral Roberts University, Arkansas-Fort Smith and Ouachita Baptist University. Due to bad weather conditions, the teams were forced to play their opening rounds on an indoor court.
Tennis coach Marco Ruiz said he thinks the initial losses may have been a result of playing indoors.
“We got there on Friday and it was raining, so we had to play indoors,” Ruiz said. “We don’t have indoor courts (at Harding), so we had to get used to the lighting differences of the indoor facilities and the faster pace of the ball because of the smoother surface. Everything is different, so that slowed us down a little at first.”
Harding then played against Ouachita Baptist. Freshmen Andras Marics and David Korsten were the first team to play, and they lost 8-6 against senior Marko Boskovic and junior Vitor Oliveira of Ouachita Baptist, whom Ruiz said are currently the number one team in the region and the number four team in the nation.
“It was a really close match up until the very end,” Ruiz said. “I was really proud of (Marics and Korsten), especially because it was the first time they were playing doubles together as a team in a big tournament, and they put up a huge fight against the number one team in our region.”
Marics and Korsten went on to defeat Oral Roberts, 8-5. Ruiz said he was proud of their performance, especially considering Oral Roberts’ reputation for its tennis program.
“That was huge, because not only is Oral Roberts a Division I school, but they’re known for having a great tradition in tennis,” Ruiz said. “For two freshmen to beat such a great team, it was huge for us and was a big highlight for us.”
Overall, Harding won four of its nine doubles matches, and all of their singles matches against Ark.-Fort Smith. The Bisons won nine out of thier total of 16 singles matches.
Ruiz said that although this tournament serves as more of a practice round to prepare teams for upcoming competitions, and it could also be a good indicator for how players will do later in the season. Sophomore Brandon Hogland, who won all of his singles matches this weekend and went 2-1 in doubles, said that although this year’s team is younger, he thinks it may still be better than past year’s teams.
“Although we are going to play some teams that are very dynamic and have some really good players and doubles teams, which will be hard, I think we’re going to have a better season this year and in the next couple of years,” Hogland said. “It’s simply from the fact that we have more good players who are at the same level this year. They can increase their skills together and at the same pace, because a lot of us are very alike.”
Both the men’s and women’s tennis teams are currently competing in the ITA/USTA Central Region Tournament in Springfield, Mo. The tournament will last until Sunday.
