After wrapping up the last of the season’s home court matches last weekend, the Arizona women’s tennis team is traveling to Seattle and Eugene, Ore., to take on Washington and Oregon, both of which will be competitive matches. 

The team will be in Seattle on Friday, where sophomore Lauren Marker said she loves to play because of the beautiful facilities and landscape. 

“I’m looking forward to just the competition,” Marker said. “I’m excited to go play at Oregon and Washington; they are two of my favorite schools to play at. I love the cities, and I’m just excited to travel one last big road trip with the team. We have a lot of fun on our road trips, so it’s definitely an adventure every time.”

Marker said she wants to be able to set up the points and take advantage of the opportunities that she gets. She also wants to be able to stay focused throughout her match and not think negative thoughts, because that’s when everything starts to crumble.

“I’m really paying attention to my thoughts lately, so when I start to have a negative thought in my head, I’ve been starting to notice it, so that’s pretty good,” Marker said. “It’s really hard to just work on that straight up; it kind of just happens over time I think. I think paying attention to your thoughts is a really big deal because if you’re thinking negative, that could really affect your whole entire outcome of the match. So always having positive thoughts for me is a big deal to keeping my focus.” 

Arizona women’s tennis coach Vicky Maes said she wants to see her athletes take advantage of opportunities and try to be the best they can be.

“We have two important road matches that are must-wins for us if we are to make the tournament,” Maes said. “I expect good effort in the doubles, lots of poaching and aggressive play right off the bat. We need to put constant pressure on our opponents so we can get a good energetic start.”

Marker obviously hopes to see her team try their hardest and leave everything out there, win or lose. 

The Arizona men’s tennis team is back in Arizona to compete against Oregon and Washington. 

Sunday’s match against Washington is going to be heartwarming for seniors Sumeet Shinde and Robin Chou, as it will be their last match on the Arizona tennis courts.

“They are a great group,” Arizona men’s tennis coach Tad Berkowitz said. “Sumeet and Robin have been with me now for four years, and both of them have come up with some huge wins for us throughout both of their careers. They’ll definitely be missed. They are good players, but more importantly they are good guys and good teammates, and they are in it for the right reasons. With that, they will definitely be missed with their positive influence that they have on the rest of the team.” 

As for the matches this weekend, Berkowitz said he wants to see his team put together everything they’ve experienced, from having great wins to close knit loses, to try the best they can. 

“The main thing is just go after it and go get it,” Berkowitz said. “When you play in the Pac-12 [Conference], no one is going to give you anything and to just go out and take it from them. When we played our last four matches, we were against some of the best teams in the country, and we saw some good positives with the guys going through some of those tough matches, and just to go and take it and go and win the match and earn it.”

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