Women’s tennis team led by dynamic sophomores

By Brian Vigna | bvigna@flagler.edu

Flagler College’s women’s tennis team began the season with four consecutive losses, which concerns any coach or fan.

But what the coach knew than most fans didn’t is how tough the competition has been in the early part of the season.

After the tumultuous start to the season, the women’s team regained some confidence by defeating Eckerd College and Florida Tech in back-to-back road matches.

Despite some struggles early on in the season, the team did see some quality play from their usual 1 and 2 doubles partners, Chelsi de Cuba and Roxane Alt, both sophomores.

The doubles combination has been successful in almost every match they have played together, gaining wins in important matches against Palm Beach Atlantic and The University of Indianapolis.

The match up of these two very different players has clearly been part of the reason for the Saints success thus far.

Freshman tennis player, and friend of both players, Hannah Wickstrom believes that communication has been a key aspect of their combined wins.

“They get along great both on and off the court and they communicate when they play together,” said Wickstrom.

The team has dropped some important matches to teams like Barry University and Eastern Kentucky, but with four matches left in the regular season, the team has a chance to gain ground and end up well over .500.

Although Flagler has actually played better on the road than at home thus far this season, the team should enjoy the fact that four of their last five games will be played at their home court.

The positive aspect of this somewhat disappointing season is the average age of the team, which lands somewhere around 19. And with only two seniors graduating, coach Walter Shinn has a great deal of young talent to work with over the next few seasons.

Both de Cuba and her doubles partner Alt are sophomores, which means Flagler women’s tennis will be a serious squad as these already highly skilled players become more mature.