During Sunday’s final round of the Seahawk Invitational, the University of North Carolina Wilmington women’s tennis team needed the mental toughness that its new coach had been working to instill.
Coach Hans Olsen’s message to his players, who he’s coached for less than two months, has been to be mindful of the mental side of the game of tennis. After dropping all of their doubles matches against Big 10 conference opponent Wisconsin on Sept. 13, the Seahawks battled back to split their singles matches with East Tennessee State University in the final round of the round robin tournament.
“The buy-in is so important, to get them to believe in what they’re working on instead of just thinking about winning and losing,” said Olsen, who comes to UNCW after 13 years as the women’s tennis coach at North Carolina State University. “If they make that connection, they’re unstoppable.”
In Sunday’s finale, UNCW got wins from freshmen Sabrina Barisano and Laura Gomez, sophomore Madara Straume and junior Alix Theodossiou. But if the Seahawks are to return to their championship form of the 2014 season, when the team won its first Colonial Athletic Association title and earned a berth in the National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament, it will need the leadership of its senior standout Christine Kharkevitch.
Calls of “Khark” were peppered throughout the stands when Kharkevitch was on the court during Friday’s round of matches against Campbell University. As the team’s only senior, she brings the leadership the Seahawks will need if they’re to compete against CAA conference rivals College of Charleston and the perennial-power of William & Mary, which took the 2015 title.
“It’s different being the only senior,” she said. “I’m really hoping that we can win.”
Though Kharkevitch dropped her match against Campbell on Friday, she rebounded on Saturday with a win in doubles. She said coach Olsen’s emphasis on poise, discipline and thought will be important for a team that’s hungry to return to the championship.
“In practice, we focus on mental toughness,” said Kharkevitch, whose training includes meditation, in addition to team-building activities. “Who do we want to be as a team.”
Junior Annika Sillanpaa said, in working to build her mental strength, she’s made sure to concentrate on one thing at a time.
“I’m not trying to focus too much on the game,” she said. “My body language needs to be calm. I’ve been focusing a lot on that.”
Kharkevitch and Sillanpaa made the all-conference second team for doubles last season, an accomplishment they both hope to improve upon in the upcoming season. The new fitness routine that Olsen has set up is designed to give the team the legs it will need to compete.
“We run until we’re exhausted,” Kharkevitch said, adding that the training includes a lot of sprinting in order to develop the explosive speed needed for competition. “We train hard in the week and use the weekends for rest.”
For Sillanpaa, who also earned 2014 second-team all-CAA, the upcoming season presents the opportunity to make the all-conference first team.
“I’ve been progressing a lot here,” said Sillanpaa, who came to UNCW from Tampere, Finland, where tennis is not usually played as a team sport. “Playing on a team is cool. You can lose and still win.”
Early season competition in NCAA women’s tennis isn’t scored like the spring matches, when competition for the conference title begins. Olsen said these matches will be critical for him to evaluate the way his new tennis team performs on the court.
“The way they play. They’re character. They’re very coachable kids,” Olsen said.
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