It’s been 12 days since the ISU tennis team played a match. With time, rest and focus on its side, the team prepares for its last road weekend of the season.

The team’s last match was a 4-0 loss to Baylor on March 29, so the team has had one and a half weeks of practice to plan for two top 20 teams and the outside tennis courts. The team will travel to the state of Texas to play TCU on Friday and Texas Tech on Sunday.

“It was nice to have this break because most of the girls were physically and mentally drained after two months of tough matches,” said senior Meghan Cassens.

Coach Armando Espinosa said the team had a lot of frustration after the Baylor loss, so practice has been intense to beat these top ranked teams. After the 4-2 Texas loss on March 27, the players were confident they could compete and possibly defeat Baylor.

Sophomore Natalie Phippen said the team has been able to refocus its attention on the future because the season is coming to a close. Iowa State has four regular season matches and then the Big 12 tournament, which is its main focus.

“If we can pull out a couple wins these next couple weekends, we could easily be in the top six in the Big 12 standings,” said senior Ksenia Pronina. “Then we could have a first round bye in the Big 12 tournament.”

Currently, Iowa State is in seventh place in the Big 12 standings with Kansas State, Oklahoma and West Virginia trailing. The only way to get the first round bye is to win two of the three Big 12 matches because Kansas is ahead of Iowa State and won the head-to-head tiebreaker.

The ISU tennis team is preparing for a No. 19 TCU and No. 15 Texas Tech showdown this weekend, but also needs to prepare to play on outdoor courts. The team has only played outside three times, with one taking place at home. Espinosa said the team has been working hard to make the players comfortable on the outdoor courts as well as adapt to playing in the heat and wind.

“There are many factors in outdoor tennis because you have the wind, temperature and the different types of courts,” Phippen said. “This can lead to faster balls, different bounces and the footing for a player on the court.”

Espinosa said these adjustments take time, but he’s impressed from the efforts from the players in practice the past two weeks. He believes the team is capable of winning the majority of the regular season matches, but needs to play as a team and not individually.

“Of course we want to win the rest of the regular season matches but all of these matches are stepping stones to the Big 12 tournament in a couple weeks,” Espinosa said.