The New Mexico men’s tennis team will return to the court after an extended break to take on UC Irvine and Pepperdine in California on Saturday.
The Lobos last played in late January when they lost to Georgia Tech and Southern Methodist. The losses prevented the team from qualifying for the USTA/ITA National Indoors.
Head coach Bart Scott said the team opened with a grueling schedule and he planned on the team having a break at this point in the season. He said the coaches have identified the things the team is doing well and what it needs to work on, but it’s up to the players to respond on the court.
“These two weeks were built into the schedule to recover and work on the things we would identify through eight matches,” he said. “I think we’ve identified those things and we’re all saying a lot of the right things. We’ll see how they’re going to respond on Saturday.”
The Lobos have already faced some highly ranked teams this season. Scott said the schedule will continue to be tough and this weekend will be no different.
“There is no other way we’d like to do it,” Scott said. “We want to put our guys in position to compete against the best teams in the country.”
Scott said the team cannot hope its way to victory against UC Irvine and Pepperdine. He described them as feisty groups that fight hard and said the Lobos will have to earn every point against those schools and compete from start to finish.
Scott said going from start to finish is something he doesn’t feel the team has done in any of the matches so far, and that will have to change to be successful. He said the team could easily have a winning record right now, but the reality is that it didn’t do the things it needed to close out matches.
Scott said the team had been winning three of the singles matches in several of the events this year, but losing the doubles point thwarted its efforts. He said the team is back to the basics of playing intense, aggressive doubles.
The Lobos started the season with the No. 8 doubles team in the country, but have been unable to use that to its advantage so far. The team will look to get back in the win column by getting off to a quick start and secure the doubles point.
Competing in doubles is something Scott said New Mexico is known for. He said the school has a proud history of playing great doubles and engaging in intense battles. The head coach said that was one of the things they identified as a focus.
“We’ve been playing great doubles at New Mexico for 20-something years,” Scott said. “We don’t intend to stop that history.”
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The team will start at 11 a.m. against UC Irvine and finish the day against Pepperdine at 5 p.m. The Lobos are 1-7 on the season and have yet to play at home. They will continue playing on the road until the team returns to play in Albuquerque late February.
Robert Maler is a freelance reporter for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @robert_maler.
