After a two-match homestand for men’s and women’s tennis, the Bulldogs will head back to Indianapolis, Ind. for a neutral site match against the McKendree University Bearcats.
Ferris men’s team (2-2, 0-0 in GLIAC) and women’s team (3-1, 0-0 in GLIAC) are coming off back-to-back home matches, the first against the Tiffin University Dragons on Feb. 8, and the second against the University of Findlay Oilers on Feb. 9.
Ferris State started its tennis season down in Indianapolis to play the No. 1 ranked University of Indianapolis before taking on Drury University.
Head coach Mark Doren highlighted how a strong start can set the tone for the season.
“It’s super important,” Doren said. “We always start at UIndy, which is always a top-five team in the country. I do it on purpose so we start with a difficult match and for the women to get a couple of match wins to start off the year, that was huge. The men didn’t get any wins the first weekend, but it taught us a little about ourselves and gave them stuff to work on, which we saw yesterday versus Tiffin.”
Men’s tennis
Following an 0-2 start to the season, the reigning back-to-back GLIAC Champions swept their opening home series against Tiffin and Findlay. Now, the Bulldogs travel back to a neutral location to take on the Bearcats.
McKendree is 0-2 on the season, including getting swept 0-7 by Grand Valley State. The Bearcats have 13 days off following their 1-6 loss against Washburn University on Feb. 2. McKendree will be ready to get into the win column against the Bulldogs.
Sophomore Kevin Kovacs talked about how they plan to take advantage of a McKendree team that hasn’t played in two weeks.
“We haven’t played against them for a long time,” Kovacs said. “A couple of our guys played them at the ITA’s, but now that we had two matches, a double header now against Findlay and Tiffin, we got a couple matches under our belt so I think we’re going to use that experience. We’re all playing well and we hope to take that to McKendree.”
Other than the few ITA matches, Kovacs talked about, Ferris and McKendree have yet to play in a one-on-one match, so both sides will be looking to be the first to win a match in the series.
The key to the Bulldogs’ success runs through the doubles play. Ferris has earned the doubles point in all four of their matchups this season, giving them an advantage heading into the singles flights. The Bulldogs look to come out firing against the Bearcats.
Women’s tennis
Despite dropping all three of their exhibition matches to start the year, the women kicked off their regular season with a 3-1 record and they’re hoping to add to their win column with a win against McKendree.
The Bulldogs split their home-opener series, capturing a 5-2 win over Tiffin before falling 6-1 to Findlay.
The consistency throughout the Bulldog’s lineup has led to multiple wins this season. This includes freshman Yara Madi who competes at three singles. Madi has captured wins in all four matches this year.
Similar to its men’s team, the McKendree women are 0-2 on the season. They were swept in both matches against Grand Valley and Washburn.
The men’s and women’s tennis teams will travel to Indianapolis to play McKendree University in the Indianapolis Racquet Club East. The match will be played on Saturday, Feb. 15. The matches are slated to start at 3 p.m. for both teams.