The Ohio State women’s tennis team cheers on a teammate during the Ohio State-Vanderbilt NCAA Tournament match May 8, 2021. Credit: Mackenzie Shanklin | Photo Editor
The No. 11 Ohio State women’s tennis team will host the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Kickoff Weekend matches, with the Buckeyes slated to take on No. 24 Oklahoma State Saturday at 10 a.m.
No. 21 LSU and No. 20 Tennessee will also compete at the tournament, with the winners and losers of the respective matches facing off against each other Sunday.
Saturday’s match is the first that spectators will be able to watch the team compete inside of the Ty Tucker Tennis Center as fan attendance was restricted last season due to COVID-19.
“Last year we could only bring two people each, and it was usually either our parents, our roommates, family members or close friends,” senior Isabelle Boulais said. “It’s really exciting that we get to have a big crowd.”
Performing well at this tournament would qualify the team for the ITA National Women’s Team Indoor Championship in Wisconsin in February. Junior Irinia Cantos Siemers emphasized that the pressure is on to collect a pair of wins.
“The stakes are high in terms of qualifying for national indoors, which is one of the main goals of the season,” Cantos Siemers said. “It’s as big as the NCAA championships.”
Not only does the tournament structure add pressure to performance, but so does the competition. Five Southeastern Conference teams, including LSU and Tennessee, and four teams from the Big 12, with Oklahoma State among them, are ranked in the Top 25.
“The stakes are always a little bit higher when other teams from out of conference come in because we want to prove ourselves as being up there with those big tennis conferences,” Boulais said. “It’s a really exciting opportunity to show ourselves off.”
Despite the high stakes surrounding the tournament, Cantos Siemers said the team does a great job tuning out the noise.
“I think that’s a big part of our preparation for this: working through hard stuff together,” Cantos Siemers said. “We’ve all done it, so it brings us closer when it gets really hard in the match and you do make eye contact with each other, and we know what we’ve been through.”
The event will be livestreamed on the Ohio State Buckeyes website.
