Another rigorous weekend awaits the Idaho men’s tennis team, which travels to Nebraska this weekend to face No. 38 University of Nebraska, No. 73 Drake and Creighton, Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
If the spring schedule hadn’t presented enough daunting opposition already, the Vandals will play the No. 5 and 6 most challenging opponents yet.
Idaho begins in Lincoln Saturday against Nebraska, which is 3-2 on the season. Its match against the Vandals will be the finale of a five-game home stand for the Cornhuskers, which saw them win three straight matches, against Denver, Creighton and East Tennessee State.
A perennial powerhouse in the Big 12 Conference, Nebraska concluded the 2011 spring campaign with a loss in the Big 12 Championships, where it faced No. 14 Texas. However, the Cornhuskers’ top-40 ranking earned them an at-large bid to the NCAA Championships in Gainesville, Fla. A 4-3 loss at the hands of Miami concluded the season for Nebraska.
Director of Tennis Jeff Beaman said he recognizes the upcoming challenge as one of the toughest his team has faced this year.
“Nebraska’s lights out. They’re tough to play at home,” Beaman said. “They’ve had four players nationally ranked in singles, they have two doubles teams ranked in the top 30 and it’s going to be a tough match.”
Like Idaho, Nebraska has a heavy international presence, with six of its 10 players hailing from Germany.
Coming off a 7-0 loss to a Boise State team Beaman believes will sneak into the top 25 by the end of the season, Idaho remains confident despite an oncoming slew of tough opposition.
“I think we’re ready to play stronger teams,” sophomore Jose Bendeck said. “We know we have to do better this time in order to get a better ranking.”
Though a match against Drake Sunday in Lincoln proves to be less demanding, the 7-1 Bulldogs haven’t lost since Jan. 28 when they fell to Harvard. In addition, they’ve swept four of their eight matches and lost just one match in two others.
Though Creighton isn’t ranked, the Blue Jays are 3-1, with their only loss coming to Nebraska Feb.12.
Beaman said the transition from playing one match in a weekend to three, can take a toll on players, both mentally and physically.
“It’s physically grueling, not a lot of teams play more than one match at a time but I think we’re in a developmental year and it just makes the guys tough,” Beaman said. “Go out and play a bunch of good teams and in terms of being at your peak performance during your second and third match, you’re going to be physically drained but it makes you a lot mentally tougher.”
Idaho’s three-match road-trip precedes a 13-day stretch that doesn’t have the Vandals back in action until March 3, when they take on Eastern Washington and Lewis-Clark State in a double-header hosted in Lewiston.