The ISU women’s tennis team will be in Milwaukee this weekend to take on Marquette on Friday and Western Michigan on Saturday.

The Cyclone women have gone 2-3 against Division-1 opponents so far this spring, as have been in the process of adjusting their lineups trying to find the most dynamic doubles pairs. The coaches said they are now close to finalizing the lineups and this weekend should be the last of the testing.

“We are pretty close to finalizing the partners,” said coach Armando Espinosa. “We have two of the three teams decided for sure. We’re still kinda figuring out the third one.”

Maria Macedo and Tessa Lang along with Simona and Erin Karonis are the two double duos locked in.

Marquette will be a good test for the Cyclones as they try to continue to improve their game and teamwork.

“It’s going to be tough, they have a very good team, and are very competitive,” Espinosa said. “We played them last year and we beat them 4-3 so it was very close. They have very good doubles and we are expecting to play some very tough games.”

The Cyclone women have already seen Western Michigan this season as they competed against them in the Western Michigan Super Challenge in November. Western Michigan got the better of the Cyclones in that matchup.

“We’ve already had the opportunity to play them once this year already in the fall so we kind of know what to expect,” Espinosa said. “We didn’t have everyone there last time, and we will have everyone there this time so that will be good for us. It should be another tough fun match for us.”

As the players have been using the opening matches this spring to get used to the level of competition and playing with new doubles partners, they have also been adjusting to the change of assistant coaches. A month after filling the void left by Chris Williams, assistant coach Rodrigo Puebla feels that things are settling into a comfort zone.

“When you see someone every day you get to know them pretty well,” Puebla said. “It’s been different coaching here, especially the change from outdoor play to almost entirely indoor play, but it’s been a lot of fun. We are getting better at finding ways to do things better on the court. We are learning to make the quick adjustments we have to during games.”

The team has tended to start off slow so and then finish very strong this spring. If they can start off well and then keep it up they should be in good shape.

“We have to try to get off to a good start,” Espinosa said.

The competition will kick off at 4 p.m. Friday as Iowa State takes on Marquette. The Western Michigan match will start at noon Saturday.