Texas A&M’s men and women’s tennis teams will head to Tulsa, Oklahoma to compete in the ITA All American Championships from Oct. 5 to Oct. 13.
The men recently competed at the Oracle ITA Masters competition in Malibu, California where Carlos Aguilar and Hady Habib went undefeated in mixed doubles and singles, while the women recently competed in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge hosted by TCU in Fort Worth.
The women’s team participated in doubles and singles, earning 17 wins against TCU, Texas Tech and Georgia, with A&M duo Renee McBryde and Riley McQuaid undefeated.
Women’s coach Mark Weaver said his team is ready to compete against the strong competitors they will face at the ITA All American Championships.
“We just played some really strong competition with Georgia, TCU and Texas Tech,” Weaver said. “We fared very well there, so that’s kind of a great lead in to the All American. The competition we’ll be facing in Tulsa is about as strong as it gets this year, and it will be a nice test to see where we truly stand.”
Junior Riley McQuaid said she and team have done many layers of preparation heading into the upcoming tournament.
“We’ve been working really hard in the gym, working really hard on the court; we’ve been doing a really good job with our sports physiologist and working on the mental side of the game,” McQuaid said. “We’re just finetuning things and making a lot of gains, and hopefully that shows this weekend.”
Men’s coach Steve Denton said his team has focused on its overall fitness as the tournament approaches.
“We’ve been pretty physical with them in terms of our fitness and our overall preparation, so I feel like certainly early in the season they’re sore, but our guys have worked really hard,” Weaver said. “They’ve played a few matches and hopefully they will be hitting their stride when we go to Tulsa this weekend.”
Junior Carlos Aguilar said he is confident in a victory but also plans to use this tournament as a building block to build more confidence and experience before the spring season.
“You never know what you’re going to end up with in a tournament,” Aguilar said. “You always go and try and win as many matches and hopefully win the tournament, but in singles, [I] at least try and get as much confidence and as many matches as I can.”