Spring Season Preview: Women’s Tennis

The upcoming spring season for The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley’s (UTRGV) women’s tennis season is a fresh start of sorts.

There is a lot of newness associated with the 2025 campaign – five new players, a new conference with new opponents to battle, and a new approach at the top. Head coach West Nott believes a lot of fresh opportunities and exciting times are ahead as the team embarks on this journey.

“Everything is fresh. The transfers have a chip on their shoulder because they want to make this situation great and establish themselves in a program. And our senior, Kristal Dule, really wants to go out with a bang so she’s looking really sharp right now,” Nott said.

“What’s different about this team versus other teams is everyone has something individually they want to prove,” Nott added. “No one came in with a dominant position and everyone is really hungry to compete for their spot. That’s going to make it really fresh. It’s a whole new environment. New venues, new opponents, new coaching, new opponents, and it’s all going to be interesting and different.”

Even the approach to practices is different this spring compared to the fall semester. Nott decided to put assistant coach Ekaterina Vorobeva in charge of planning and running practices so he could focus more on other things to get the team running more efficiently. Nott praised Vorobeva for her efforts so far, saying she has the Vaqueros drilling hard and competing every day in practice. Nott handles more of the one-on-one work.

Healthy competition is something that will be prevalent throughout the season. Nott said the lineup will likely change often and he’s going to use a merit-based approach to determine where everyone competes.

“I think we’re going to have a very flexible lineup this year. We’re going to see who performs the best and go with the hot hand at any given time,” Nott said. “The team is pretty even up and down the lineup and they’ve all been working hard. Everyone is team oriented and wants to pitch in where they can. We’re still trying to figure out what are the perfect doubles combinations. The biggest message overall is to be team oriented with a positive attitude because we expect things not to go perfectly and we expect things to be really tough and hard and we’re prepared to mentally grind through that.”

The Vaqueros are aiming to stack up wins early to create some momentum going into the first round of the South Texas Showdown, presented by Rally Credit Union, against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. From there, the schedule gets tough with opponents they don’t know much about and a new schedule for league play.

UTRGV will lean on its team chemistry and talented roster to attack the new season. The Vaqueros are growing closer and sharper every day and feel hopeful heading into the spring campaign.

“The team chemistry looks great right now. We had a great fall so we’re just trying to build upon that,” Nott said. “The goal for the season is really to just try to get into the winning column and finish in the top half of the Southland Conference. We want to put ourselves in a good position and build confidence early. We’re ready for any curveballs. I think it’s going to be a good year.”