University of Minnesota Athletics
Women's Tennis Season Blog: Elianna Kantar
2/1/2012 12:00:00 AM | Tennis
Feb. 1, 2012
Updated Women's Tennis Stats | Gopher Women's Tennis Facebook Page
Minnesota Opens Season With 7-0 Win | Minnesota Improves to 2-0 With Win Over Creighton
Welcome to our 2012 women's tennis season Gopher fans! I hope you had as exciting a weekend as we did! We played two great matches this weekend against Iowa State and Creighton and came out on top in both. I'm so proud of how all the girls competed. Everyone stepped on the court, fought hard for every point and put everything they had into their match. I could not have imagined a better home opener weekend for the Gophers. Thank you to everyone who came to the match! We truly appreciate your support and love seeing you up in the stands.
We stepped out on the court a very different team from last year. Not only do we have four brand new freshman that have been contributing and influencing the team, but we have a brand new outlook on the season. More than ever we, as players, are taking ownership of the team. Every member of the team is important and the team is affected by what each team member does. We have been working hard to embrace this ideal and there is a new energy we attack every workout and practice with. We are all just so excited to be out here competing and representing the University of Minnesota. I have never seen a group of girls that cares so much about the team as my teammates do this season.
This season we began a new pre-match tradition where each team member is assigned a particular match in which they can do whatever they want to inspire the rest of the team. This includes giving speeches, playing videos, playing songs, or anything else one can think of. For the Iowa State match on Friday night I played a short video of a mash-up of inspirational speeches from movies for the team and then said what I hope were some inspiring words. On Saturday for the Creighton match, Yuliana (Umanets) played a video for the team that always inspires her. I really enjoyed the video; it was a compilation of quotes and clips from movies and historical events. I am really looking forward to seeing what the girls have to show us as the season progresses.
Through all of the great things that happened this weekend, I think my favorite moment was the moment we realized we had won the first match of the weekend. There is something about standing on court and cheering with your teammates and then looking up at that scoreboard and realizing that your team has done it. That is like no other experience in tennis. Having that win occur on not only the first match, but for the first home match of the season was amazing. It was the moment our team has been training for and preparing for since September and the energy on court was fantastic. I'm looking forward to more great matches throughout the season and I can't wait to see what our team is capable of. I hope that you all keep coming and supporting Gopher women's tennis because we love having you there!
Go Gophs!
