After an opening weekend that saw the Idaho men’s tennis team go 2-1, the Vandals are back in action this weekend with three more matches on the slate.
The Vandals face the No. 75 Oregon Ducks at 9 a.m. and the Missouri-Kansas City Kangaroos at 4 p.m Saturday in Eugene. Then the team heads to Portland Sunday to compete against the Portland Pilots at 10 a.m.
Six matches in nine days will challenge the Vandals and Idaho Director of Tennis Jeff Beaman realizes the tightly packed schedule will push his team this early in the season.
“Sometimes with scheduling you have to take what you can get based on when other teams can play you,” Beaman said. “Ideally these two trips would have a week or two off between them and one would be later in the year, but win or lose, playing this amount of strong matches early in the year will make the guys stronger later in the year.”
The Vandals have endured tough travels so far this season. Beaman said the trip to Seattle took nine hours because of bad weather and this one could take up to nine hours as well. Competing against three teams in only two days adds to the challenge.
The Vandals have stepped up to that challenge thus far and proved they could bounce back after they were swept by the No. 26 Washington Huskies 7-0 in the season opener. Idaho rebounded in dramatic fashion beating No. 75 Pacific 4-3 and then dominated Seattle University 6-1.
Junior Abid Akbar, sophomore Jose Bendeck and freshman Cesar Torres — who all won both of their matches in the two victories — led the way for Idaho.
“It was great to bounce back with a win against nationally ranked Pacific and a tough Seattle team that is joining the conference next year,” Beaman said.
Beaman hopes to get closer to discovering what his line-up is going to look like this year as he decides who fits into which spots. Beaman said Marius Cirstea is No. 1, Akbar No. 2 and Alan Shin No. 3, but after that it’s wide open.
Beaman said the doubles have not come together either.
The Vandals look to solidify those final spots as they start the weekend against the No.75 preseason ranked Ducks. Oregon is unblemished this season, having defeated both opponents 7-0.
It should get easier from there for the Vandals because neither Missouri-Kansas City nor Portland were in the preseason rankings.
After this weekend the Vandals can relax for a short while. Next week’s schedule only has them playing one match against Gonzaga in Spokane Friday and then off the court until the second half of the month.