The year is almost complete for the ISU tennis team, which has only one meet left the regular season docket followed by the Big 12 tournament before hanging up the tennis equipment for another summer.

“The traveling is getting to me, but I feel like we are breaking through with a couple of kids…so it ending is kind of bittersweet,” said ISU coach Armando Espinosa.

A vacation is on the horizon for most of Iowa State as the 2013-14 regular season draws near the end, but one of Espinosa’s breakout ISU players is gearing up for three solid months of summer tennis.

Freshman Talisa Merchiers, a Belgian national, is heading home this summer to compete on the International Tennis Federation sanctioned tour.

Merchiers will be playing in tournaments that have top prizes ranging from $10,000 to $25,000 with the potential for even more.

The money, however, is not what is on Merchier’s mind because as a collegiate athlete, she is prohibited by NCAA rules from keeping any cash earnings beyond what it costs her to enter the tournament.

“I play tournaments the whole summer,” Merchiers said. “We need to play ten tournaments back home to get our ranking and I am going to play for a higher one.”

Merchiers is currently the 60th-ranked female tennis player in Belgium but said that this year she is pushing for a world ranking.

Merchiers earned two points on the tour in 2013, which vaulted her to the 60th position in her home country, and said she needs three points in 2014 to claim a world ranking. She explained how the system works.

“You have to get through the qualification table then go to the main draw and win one round. That is how you win a point,” Merchiers said. “You need to do that three times to get a world ranking.”

Merchiers said that winning three points would be a meaningful accomplishment because once she attains a world ranking, she will automatically be a round further in tournaments due to a system of byes.

Merchiers will not be attempting this feat all on her own. She plans to play again this summer under coach Carl Maes, who also coaches professional Kim Clijsters.

Clijsters has won eight grand slam singles titles in her career, had the No. 1 ranking in the world and earned millions upon millions of dollars playing tennis.

Merchiers said Maes and the tour are all part of her plan to become a full-time, professional tennis player, a dream she has held on to despite early setbacks.

“You are never too old to try. I know a girl from Belgium who is 28 and just came up,” Merchiers said. “She is a little bit of my inspiration. No one ever believed in her. She was pushed out of the Federation just like I was.”

The Federation to which Merchiers referred is the national Belgian team, which cut Merchiers at 16 years of age when financial issues forced the Federation to downsize from carrying four players per age group to carrying just two.

Merchiers said she was angry about her release when it happened and that the same anger persists today, serving as a motivation to her out on the court.

“I am so pissed [about being cut] because one of the girls ahead of me later stopped playing tennis,” Merchiers said. “They kicked me out and said they did not believe in me, so I am going to try and show them they were wrong.”

Merchiers has gone a long way towards proving herself as a college player as she stands as the only Cyclones player in the rotation with more than one victory in Big 12 competition. Eight of the 10 schools that comprise the Big 12 have been ranked this season, making it one of the top collegiate tennis conferences in the country.

Merchiers plays at the No. 6 singles position and is 2-6 in conference play. She has an opportunity to get a third Big 12 win this April 12 against West Virginia.

“You just have to believe in yourself,” Merchiers said. “I was losing so hard against Kansas State and I thought to myself to just play the match point for point and see what happens.”

Merchiers won that match, something she said she plans on doing a whole lot of in the future, both in and out of an ISU uniform.