The Iowa State Women’s tennis team improved their season record to 4-1 after a great performance in Des Moines this weekend. They defeated North Dakota 5-1 and Omaha 4-0 on Saturday afternoon which helped build momentum going into Sunday’s match, where they were hosted by the Drake Bulldogs, at the Roger Knapp Tennis Center.

“We need to be coachable,” said coach Armando Espinosa on Saturday afternoon after the win against North Dakota.

Coach Espinosa was looking forward to the match against Drake. He even said it would be a good match. Iowa State defeated Drake 4-0.

“We cannot rely only on singles to win four out of the six, It is a lot of energy to bounce back,” Espinosa said.

The Cyclones have been going through some adjustments in their doubles pairings early this season. For coaches, this means trying different combinations of doubles pairings. Pairing different teammates together in order to see which combinations work best. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. It’s not always as simple as putting your two best players out on the court together.

In order for a doubles pairing to be successful, the pair needs to be in sync and play to each other’s strengths. They need to be able to play together, each player making up for the others weakness.

For the players this means hours of practice and training. It also means winning and losing matches together in order to find the chemistry that puts them insync. Finding this chemistry could take a matter of weeks, months, and sometimes even season. Fortunately, for the Cyclones, the chemistry of their doubles pairings is visible early in the season.

Espinosa believes that winning in doubles gives his team confidence when going into singles. Espinosa wants his team to be coachable in doubles and to keep trusting and believing in each other.

The end result for the weekend was in favor of the Cyclones. With the season still early, adjustments still being made on the court, and along with getting some early wins in the season, there is potential to say that this team will have it figured out by the time conference play is under way in March.

Until then, the season is still young and there will be plenty of opportunities for this team to make their mark this season. On Feb. 12th-14th, Iowa State travels to Utah, where they will meet up against: Idaho State (0-2), Utah State (2-1) and Webster State (0-3).

Iowa State will have another opportunity to end the weekend 3-0 at another away meet. But first, the Cyclones are back on the practice courts tightening up their game and more importantly getting the blueprints ready for their doubles pairing.