Familiarity certainly does not breed contempt for Penn women’s tennis as it prepares to take on Temple, which is, after all, one of the Quakers’ most familiar opponents.
This Saturday at noon, the Quakers (7-3) will host the Owls (5-8) at Levy Tennis Pavilion for Penn’s last non-Ivy match of the season.
Last year, Temple overcame Penn in a close match, 4-3. But this year, the Red and Blue have other plans.
“This is the last match [before Ivy play] to kind of put it all out there,” coach Sanela Kunovac said. “So we plan to be more aggressive.”
The Penn women have had a promising spring season thus far, and they just barely lost to Maryland last weekend, 4-3.
“I think we are pretty confident coming off a good spring break,” sophomore Alex Ion said. “We won all three of our matches and we’re practicing hard.”
But Kunovac hopes that this confidence in practice translates into self-assurance in match play.
“I have to constantly keep reminding them, ‘You guys are good, now you’ve got to carry that swagger on the court a little bit,’” Kunovac said.
According to Kunovac, though, this is the best problem that a coach could ask for.
“It’s so funny we have this really humble group,” Kunovac said. “[That’s] great because you don’t want a player that is satisfied — you want them to want more.”
Since the match begins with the doubles competitions, the team likes to set the tone in during this time.
“I think that in our singles match, it really helps knowing we have that doubles point behind us,” Ion said.
Ultimately, Kunovac’s goal is to carry that momentum throughout the entire match.
“I want team unity,” Kunovac said. “I want to see everything work together.”
The team plans to use this match as a culmination of all it has learned this season.
“This is a good way to solidify what we have already done,” Kunovac said. “To know that it is not a fluke, and to know this is who we are.”
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