Talent and chemistry is what the UNM women's tennis team hopes can overcome a young and inexperienced group of players.
The Lobos introduce five newcomers to the program this weekend when they open the fall portion of the schedule. UNM is playing in the 13th Annual Coors Light Lobo Invite today through Sunday at the Lobo Tennis Club.
The Lobos' roster includes four freshman, three sophomores, a junior transfer and one senior.
"We are very young and obviously very inexperienced in college play," head coach Kathy Kolankiewicz said. "But, we have a lot of talent."
The newcomers will try to help replace the two seniors the Lobos lost, including one of UNM's best players ever, Natalia Alekhova. She finished her career with 111 wins, which tied her for second on the all-time career wins list.
The Lobos will get to show off their talent in this weekend's tournament against the Air Force Academy, Illinois State University and Northern Arizona University.
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No team records are kept for the tournament, only individual scores. The tournament format is a single draw for singles players and doubles play.
"Everybody is thrown in one big draw, so one of your new kids could win this," Kolankiewicz said. "Everyone has a chance to prove themselves in the field."
Although the Lobos are looking for players to step up and prove themselves, they have many viable candidates to take the number one position and a leadership role.
A pair of sophomores look to continue building on a stellar freshman season.
Tjasa Suvak led the returning players in wins with 20 last season, mostly playing at the number two position. She was chosen last season as the most valuable player and this year comes back as the 20th-ranked player in the central region.
Sandy Lukowski is coming off an impressive showing in the Coleman Vision Tennis Championships this week in which she went 1-1. The tournament had some of the best young players in the world and will help her build on last season when she won 17 matches.
"It was a great experience because I got to play two top players in the world; it was lots of fun," she said. "It gives me more confidence having some matches underneath my belt. Just playing matches and just going out there and playing, and being under pressure helps me for every other match that I play."
The Lobos' lone senior is captain Courtney Choate, who recorded 19 singles wins last season. She is looking for another impressive season because last year she was a Mountain West Conference all-doubles player and is lookng for another impressive season. Her great effort does not stop on the tennis courts - she also was named an Academic All-American.
The three returning players will be expected to provide some experience and leadership to the young squad.
"We do expect them to step up and show the new kids how we like things to be done, what we expect from them and that a lot of hard work does pay off," Kolankiewicz said.
She said the fall schedule, which includes three individual tournaments, will help give the newcomers a chance to find out how to play college tennis before the team matches start in the spring.
The newcomers do come into the program with quite a few accomplishments. Junior transfer Rachel Hatley was a junior college All-American in singles and doubles at Lee College. Freshman Regula Comtesse was ranked in the top-10 in Switzerland in the under-18 division and freshman Michelle Heidbrink was ranked in the top-20 in California and top-100 in the nation.
"We have a lot of different kind of players, like different styles of games on the court," Lukowski said. "So I think every one will contribute good to the team. Doubles will be good because we get a long so well. It will be interesting."
