The University of Mississippi Athletics
First Serve: Q&A with Coach Beyers
11/20/2015 | Women's Tennis
Ole Miss women's tennis recently wrapped up the fall season. OleMissSports.com caught up with head coach Mark Beyers to talk about the fall, including key returnees and the newcomers, as well as look ahead to the spring.
OleMissSports.com: With the fall season complete now, give us your overall thoughts on how it went.
Beyers: I think we had some great individual success and great individual wins. From an injury stand point that's something that you can't really do anything about, but we had quite a few injuries, so not everybody got to play every tournament. From an individual standpoint, Mai El Kamash beating Sydney Campbell (No. 7), picking up a top 10 victory was a great win for her that will undoubtedly help her in the rankings. Natalie Suk beat Georgia Tech's No. 1 player Johnnise Renaud at the Roberta Allison Classic. That was a great win for her. She was top 30 in the world in juniors and is going to have a great year at Georgia Tech. Arianne early on had some really good wins and then kind of had some issues with her back. Tea Jandric picked up some great wins that will show up in the rankings. Allie Sanford, beating Arianne for her is obviously going to be a great individual win. Hopefully we get all these injuries out of the way and we can come back in January and be bigger, better and stronger. They've all shown the ability to pick up some great wins. So once they get to play in a dual match it'll show and help us pick up some dual match wins.
OleMissSports.com: Speaking of injuries, obviously there's one injury that is a little more severe, talking about Tereza Janatova.
Beyers: Tereza, it was really kind of a bummer because after a couple weeks you could see she was growing every week as far as getting more comfortable playing on the hard courts. She picked up a good win in the first round at the tournament in Little Rock and was up a set against Kelsey Laurente, who played No. 1 at Miami before she transferred to Oklahoma State. For her to tear an ACL it's sad, but it is what it is. Her surgery went great, her rehab is going well, and we'll see what happens. Hopefully she'll be able to come back with that knee even stronger and have a great career here at Ole Miss.
OleMissSports.com: So is she likely out for the rest of the year?
Beyers: We'll just kind of have to see how things go, as far as her rehab is concerned. Like I said, her rehab is going fantastic. She's ahead of schedule as far as that's concerned, but what that means as far as her being able to play this year or not…who knows?
But she's doing everything she can, our medical staff is doing everything they can, and you know I'm not a doctor, but from what all the surgeons are telling me, she's doing great. Her rehab is going better than expected. It's just one of those things you have no control over, and it is what it is.
OleMissSports.com: Next man up I guess?
Beyers: Yes with the depth that we have, we have the luxury to be able to do that. Even though obviously I'd love to have Tereza in the lineup, I think it's one of those things where as a coach you try and recruit to have that depth in case something like this happens. In tennis, not that often do you see an injury that is going to keep somebody out for that long. I've been doing this for 23 years, this is the first time I've had somebody tear an ACL. Hopefully it'll be the only time. Again, she's doing everything she can from a rehab standpoint and Britney (Woodhull-Smith) our trainer is doing an amazing job with her. Everyday she's out there working, getting stronger and we'll see what happens. But again, we have the depth to handle things like that and if she's there, great, if she's not there then we'll have to do it with the other girls.
OleMissSports.com: Talk about the seniors, obviously they've been here awhile now and they had a pretty good fall.
Beyers: Mai is going to have a great year. Really, she is working hard and those results toward the end of the fall really started to show what kind of work she's put in and what kind of player she is, what she's capable of. I really expect some really big things from her this spring. Marija Milutinovic was doing great in Little Rock, but she had some injuries and wasn't been able to play the last two tournaments. But it looks like she'll be back pretty soon. If her results she had out in Little Rock are any indication of what she is going to do this year, it's going to be a good year for her as well. Allie Robbins won a doubles title with Brooke Stevens and there's not a harder working person on the team. She's somebody that's improved year after year, the greatest kid as far as her attitude out there. It's just fantastic having her around because she makes everybody better.
OleMissSports.com: And then you have Zalina (Khairudinova), who's obviously got a lot of experience.
Beyers: Zalina has really matured. Her attitude on the court is so much better day in and day out in practice and it's really starting to show in her game. It's one of those things where she has all the ability, but for some reason it was tough for her to have that come out in matches. Now it's one of those things where she's doing great as far as the work ethic in practice and I think that's showing in some of her results in the fall tournaments. We're looking for big things out of her.
OleMissSports.com: And Natalie, she made a pretty big jump this fall.
Beyers: She played great in that tournament at Alabama, that last tournament she played. She played a girl from Northwestern the first round and beat her handedly and played really well. She also beat the No. 1 player from Georgia Tech easily and then actually played great tennis in the finals against Andie Daniell from Alabama and had a couple match points, but ended up losing 7-6 in the third. It was just such high level tennis. It was exciting to see that she could play at that level because if she can play at that level in the spring, then she can really make an impact not just in the lineup but towards the top of the lineup.
OleMissSports.com: Arianne you mentioned earlier, that she was dealing with some back issues.
Beyers: Yes, it's something that's just taking a little time as far as getting the pain to go down. But Arianne is such a great ball striker and it's more important now to get her 100 percent healthy, so we didn't push these last couple of tournaments and just gave her more time to rest. We need her healthy in order for this team to reach our goals. Just like with Tereza, our medical staff is doing everything they can. Arianne is doing everything she can as far as getting her back better and stronger. The pain is starting to come down, but there was really no reason for us to really push it those last couple of weeks as far as the fall tournaments were concerned. So she's been getting some extra rest and starting to get back out there now.
OleMissSports.com: Talk about the freshmen that got to play a lot like Tea and Allie, pretty good fall from her.
Beyers: We knew coming in that all of these kids were good players that were going to have the ability to make an immediate impact. Now obviously we talked about Tereza with her injury not being able to do that, but yeah Tea Jandric, Allie Sanford and Brooke Stevens…Brooke Stevens, her last tournament in Alabama, played some great tennis. She didn't lose…won the singles and the doubles. I think for all of them the biggest thing is just them maturing a little bit more. Being able to manage their emotions on the court. They all have the ball striking ability, but sometimes between their ears is where they're still a little bit immature. If they can learn to deal with adversity a little bit better, because in the SEC you're going to deal with adversity, everybody's good. And so if they can handle that part a little bit better they're going to be great players for us.
OleMissSports.com: I know it's still a little early, but did the fall give you any more clarification for the spring as far as the lineup?
Beyers: Not entirely, but what it showed me is that every single one of these kids is capable of playing at a high level. We'll worry about the lineup as we get closer. Obviously in January we'll have to roll out a lineup, whether that's going to be the lineup in April and May, I have no idea. A lot of things happen, a lot of people improve and I think that everybody showed they're capable and has the ability to play at a pretty high level. We'll figure that out.
OleMissSports.com: Obviously you have to replace a lot of wins in the lineup too, especially at the top.
Beyers: It's hard for any freshman coming in to replace somebody like Julia Jones or even Erin Stephens and Iris Verboven. They made a huge impact in singles and doubles for us. At the end of last year, one of them played at one doubles, one of them played at two doubles and one of them played at three doubles. We have no returning doubles teams and the experience factor with both Julia and Erin, I don't even know how many wins they had last year in both singles and doubles, but it's hard to replace. Again, these young players, they have the ability. It's just going to take a little bit of time. That maturity process of how to handle…and it was no different with Erin or Julia when they first came in here they were really good players, but they were a little immature at times. They got better at that and they had a great career, both of those guys won a lot of matches for us. So hopefully that's the same thing that's going to happen with Tea, Tereza, Allie Sanford and Brooke Stevens. Looking back four years from now I think we're going say this was a really good recruiting class.
OleMissSports.com: And what do you do between now and January?
Beyers: We've continued to work on court for a couple of hours and then the rest of the time we've spent in the weight room doing weights and conditioning. After Thanksgiving Break we can't work out with them at all the week before exams or exam week. So they'll have to rely on each other a little bit and they did a really good job of that early this season before we were able to get into our 20 hour in season time. They're going to have to do that again and get their hours in on their own. They've really taken ownership of that and really done a good job of getting those hours in when we can't be with them, just to hit with each other.
Players Mentioned
