BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — This fall, the ITA (Intercollegiate Tennis Association) published a list of the winningest women's tennis coaches in the nation.
With a 266-137 (66%) career record in 14 seasons, Greg Davis of WKU Lady Topper Tennis found himself in the top 50 in active winningest coaches in both total wins (45th) and winning percentage (31st).
"I've been lucky to have some really good players in the past," he said. "And we've got a good collection this year of tremendous players, we're just working through the process right now."
Davis will have to use his years of success and experience to help guide the 2020-21 WKU team through the challenges of being away from organized practices and competitions for many months due to COVID-19.
"Everybody's been back and we're working hard and we feel pretty good about where we are right now," he said. "The emphasis has been conditioning and just getting in some matches, because whenever you have a layoff like we've had – five or six months without playing a tournament or any matches – it's difficult."
The Lady Toppers have one fall tournament coming up, where they will travel to Murfreesboro, Tenn., from October 16-17 to compete against Middle Tennessee, East Tennessee State and Chattanooga. There will be both singles and doubles matches on Friday and Saturday, which will be invaluable for WKU to gain at least some experience in competition against other opponents this fall.
"We do a lot of situations to try to practice with as much pressure as possible, but nothing takes the place of popping new balls to play a match and playing against an opponent," Davis said. "It's going to be a challenge, but it's going to be a good challenge."
Whether it's in practice or competition, the focus of the 2020-21 team is to get 1% better every day, and Davis likes his players' chances of doing just that.
"The strength of this team I like is the work ethic, they're putting in the extra time to improve not only themselves but the team," he said. "That's something we always stress, when you improve yourself individually, you're actually improving the team."
The Lady Toppers return six letterwinners – Lisa Friess, Laura Bernardos, Cora-Lynn von Dungern, Tristen Bryant-Otake, Lauren Joch and Kyla Dilger – to go along with newcomers Alexis Cramer and Adriana Subias.
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