Freshmen joins tennis team

Freshman Viviane Nunez, who is only playing tennis for the first time, said she decided to join the team because of her interest in less popular sports. “I’m always interested in the less talked about sports, so I started tennis because it’s both a mental and physical game, which seemed challenging,” she said. The varsity practices are often led by head coach Tara Sagers and JV practices by assistant coach Mitch Dekutoski.

For Nunez, a typical practice occurs at the UNI tennis courts and begins with warmups to prevent injury, particularly on colder days, followed by hitting rallies with a partner and work on a specific technique or “play points,” which can either be simulated matches or games such as King of the Court. Practices for the varsity team are generally longer and involve training of some different skills, but are similar to junior varsity practices. Sagers has not responded to a request for comment on varsity practices at this time.

The JV team has not yet had any matches, but has an upcoming event against Dubuque Senior on Friday, Apr. 29 at 4 p.m. Between now and her first match, Nunez hopes to improve her skills while still continuing to use the extracurricular as an opportunity to get closer with those of her friends who are also on the team. Nunez also wants to refine her abilities before the next season. “I want to continue to improve so that I can be on varsity next year. That’s my main goal right now.”