The University of Mississippi Athletics
Ole Miss Women's Tennis To Host Weekend Matches
1/30/2008 | Women's Tennis
“We feel confident going into the match against Southern,” said assistant coach Whitt Taber, who pulled double duty Wednesday, with head coach Mark Beyers sidelined with the flu. “ The Lady Rebels returned several experienced players mixed in with some talented freshmen; therefore, they weren’t expecting to be 1-2 at this point. After opening the season at home with a 6-1 win over Middle Tennessee, the team is looking to rebound from two tough losses on the road last weekend in “We felt coming into the season that our advantage would be at the bottom of our lineup, but we haven’t showed that it’s going to be an advantage for us,” Taber said. “I think it eventually will. We have new players, with half of our starting lineup being freshmen. You are going to have some results you don’t expect in a good and a bad way. We are hoping to smooth out some of those surprises and make them all good ones.” One of the freshmen doing well is Karen Nijssen, of In both losses last weekend, the team had chances to come out ahead in several individual matches, of which Taber said, “We have worked this week on being mentally disciplined when we are ahead. Last weekend we did a poor job of playing when we were ahead. We had a lot of game points that we just gave away. Some of that is early matches, and some of it is we have to play with more confidence. We have a lot of talent, but we just need to figure out how to play in those situations when we are about to put people away.” Southern comes into Friday’s match at 0-1 on the season, having lost to Xavier 4-3 in their season opener. Admission to all home matches is free.
