Slug:M & W tennis

Saturday marked the first time since Jan. 30 that both SIU’s men’s and women’s tennis teams competed on the same day and the first time in two weeks that they even competed in the same weekend.

What resulted from this play was less than ideal. Out of four matches combined, a Saluki squad only came out on top in one. With spring break approaching, both teams find themselves simply holding down the fort while grasping for whatever can make the rest of their schedule look promising.

Like the schedule, which had the teams diverging in directions north and south, men and women’s tennis is separating from each other in wins and losses. Neither team is at .500, but this weekend left the men’s team within reach at 4-6 while the women slumped down to 2-6 following two losses versus Murray State and Miami (Ohio) in Paducah.

A cloud hovered early over Friday’s action against the Racers as MSU put together three impressive doubles wins and dug a hole that SIU could not get out of.

“It was the worst that we’ve played doubles,” head coach Brett Bridel said. “Everything, the fundamentals of how to play, how to move and all that. We just weren’t doing it.”

To win this match, four singles wins were needed, but only two came, and SIU suffered a 5-2 loss. Miami (Ohio) made the next day a stressful one as the 7-0 loss was less than relaxing.

Bridel openly admits his team was overmatched on this day. The story told by the scores shows SIU competed better in doubles than they did versus Murray, but in losing all six singles matches, no Saluki put up more than four points in a set.

“We still came out of there with a positive attitude about our improvement,” Bridel said. “It’s hard to see when you get beat like that, but we are getting better, and [Miami (Ohio)] was just a better team.”

While SIU was getting handled by the Redhawks, the University of Illinois-Chicago played host to the men in Hinsdale. As far as head coach Missy Jeffrey is concerned, the Flames were perfect hosts, and not just because they took a 5-2 loss from the Salukis.

“They had 25 spectators there, and our team was louder than their team and their spectators,” Jeffrey said. “It was almost as if we were playing a home match.”

In front of the crowd, SIU put together the “best match we’ve played as a team this spring,” Jeffrey said, and left them a DePaul win away from breaking even on the season.

“We felt that we played right there with them,” Jeffrey said. “We lost the doubles point in a close tie-breaker, and then they just played a little better than us down the line-up in singles.”

The win wasn’t meant to be as DePaul would give the men its own 7-0 shutout, but Jeffrey had an entire eight-man roster to work with for the first time this year. At full strength, the Salukis put up a fight but could not pull what would have been an upset.

“We are playing very tough competition, and it is helping us improve,” Jeffrey said. “The thing we really need right now is a bigger win. We need that extra edge of confidence that comes from a bigger win.”

Both teams will be in action within the next week, with the women traveling to Tallahassee, Fla., to meet Florida A&M.

Both the men’s and women’s seasons may have been succinctly put into words by Bridel.

“We’re just taking the little steps; we’re not going to panic and do something crazy,” Bridel said. “We just want to improve little by little and build a team.”

Reporter Kyle Means can be reached at [email protected]