After losing close matches to Xavier, Farleigh Dickinson, and Stony Brook to close out the month of February, the women’s tennis team was looking to get going back in the right direction in the first few days of March with weekend matches against Hampton and Old Dominion.
The Owls appeared to do just that with a resounding 7-0 victory on the road against Hampton on Saturday. The scoreboard was filled with lopsided, straight-set match wins for Temple and there for Coach Steve Mauro, there was little to complain about from top to bottom.
“They played real solid tennis,” Mauro said. “They didn’t make a lot of mistakes in both doubles and singles.”
However, this solid play did not carry over into Sunday against Old Dominion as Temple reverted back to its losing ways dropping a 5-2 decision in Norfolk, Virginia. While the loss left a bad taste in the mouths of the Owls, who were hoping to string together a few wins after losing three straight to end February, Mauro thought the effort was there.
“I think we competed hard with them,” Mauro said.
The matches have been slightly more challenging recently for the Owls who have been without freshmen Anais Nussaume recently, who has been bothered by a stomach virus. Mauro noted that not having Nussaume in the lineup certainly hurts Temple’s depth.
“She plays a key role for us in both doubles and singles,” Mauro said. “I think if she were in the lineup it would have given us a much better chance to win.”
However, the level of play dropped against Old Dominion, and there were a few things that Mauro observed against Hampton that he said he wants to use as points of emphasis as the season progresses.
“Consistency,” Mauro said. “We didn’t make a lot of errors. We just need to play that same type of tennis against other teams. We need to just play consistent, wait for our chances, and go for our shots.”
The women’s team will have chances to execute such consistency this week against Houston and Southern Methodist. These two matches will be the first two of four matches for Temple in American Athletic Conference play.
Greg Frank can be reached at greg.frank@temple.edu or on Twitter @g_frank6.
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