Although the ISU tennis team lost to Minnesota 7-0 on Friday, there are still some positives it will take away from the meet.

Senior Marie-Christine Chartier won one of her sets and was close in the other two. Many of the other team members also lost close matches to the Golden Gophers.

The key to performing better is consistency and solid fundamentals.

“We were not very fundamentally sound when we played Minnesota,” said coach Armando Espinosa. “They did the fundamentals better than we did, they moved us around and we were not able to counterattack that.”

Players also stressed mental preparation and being able to adjust to what the other team is doing.

“I just don’t think we made the necessary changes that we needed to make when we were losing,” said sophomore Emma Waites.

Espinosa said the team has been practicing well, but there is always room for improvement. He stressed being unable to adapt as one of the biggest reasons for the loss Friday.

“The other thing we need to work in [is] adaptation,” Espinosa said. “We were somewhat controlling a few matches, but then they adapted and we couldn’t adjust to their changes and that turned the match around.”

Tennis is as much of a mental sport as it is a physical sport, and reacting to the first punch that the opponent throws is a big part of the game.

“I think we were kind of shocked by how good they were maybe, and we weren’t really ready like we should have been,” said junior Jenna Langhorst

In order to be more successful at the next meet, there are a few things Espinosa said the Cyclones need to work on.

“Minimizing the mistakes that we made, learn from what we couldn’t do this weekend,” Espinosa said. “If you’re ahead, you have to learn to put it away or learn to adapt to what they do and keep doing the fundamentals right every match.”

If the team works out the kinks and gets back to the fundamentals, Espinosa knows it will be successful.

“I’m a big believer if we can do the fundamentals right, then we can beat anybody,” Espinosa said. “If we can do that well then we should be fine.”

Espinosa said he wasn’t sure if there would be any lineup changes for the meets next weekend, which will take place against Western Michigan on Friday and Marquette on Saturday.