Spiders Voices: Winning As A Team

By: Matt Fernandez, Junior, Men's Tennis

The 2018 season was highlighted by change. With five seniors graduating from the previous season, a new head coach and two newcomers - the men's tennis team began a new era. The transition was far from easy. Of the eight guys, Caleb and James (Class of 2018) were the only ones to have started during the spring season prior to that year. The class of 2020 ended up consisting of half the lineup, but our limited experience in pressure situations often got the best of us. We lost five matches that came down to the last point and as much as those losses hurt, they gave us exposure to pressure. We learned how our bodies reacted under tense situations, how to respond accordingly, and how to compete in the face of adversity. The 2018 season strengthened our characters as tennis players and as people. My goal for 2019 was to create a team culture that embraced the process of learning, and help my teammates pride themselves on embracing the uncomfortable situations in order to grow as athletes and mature as people.

At the beginning of the 2019 season, we met as a team to go over our team covenant, basically a fancy way of saying what we wanted to pride ourselves on as a team. We emphasized positive energy during practice and matches, committing ourselves to the process of becoming better tennis players and fighting through adversity. I was vocal about what I had learned last year: to be process oriented, be comfortable being uncomfortable. The theme that stuck out most to me through our hour-long conversation was the need to invest in our teammate's success. We had done a dismal job of that in the past.

Tennis is an individual sport that often yields a selfish, narcissistic environment. Egos get in the way of team success and everyone on our team, including myself, has let their individual success get in the way of benefiting the team. The irony of the situation is that the team aspect of college tennis is what we all came here to do. We play college tennis to escape the lonely individuality of the sport and to find solace in others. We are a family that needed to do a better job of embracing that. We are far from perfect, but we all care about each other. I have had some tough conversations with several guys on the team throughout the fall, but embracing these uncomfortable situations has allowed me to form stronger bonds with my class, as well as the underclassmen. I'm grateful to have been able to be vulnerable with these guys both on-and-off the court. I have developed a relationship of trust with every one of them.

I truly believe our successful start to the season can be attributed to the fact that we now, more than ever, fight for each other when adversity strikes. I feel my teammates' presence during matches, I feel their emotions, their grittiness in tough times. They have a willingness to put their head down and work through any situation on court. We individually have our ups and downs, but we make college tennis a team sport. We aren't the most talented team in country, but what we do have is a coach that cares more than anything about the growth of this program and players who are willing to bring intensity every day. That alone will yield progress, and the results have shown.

We've ended up clinching five matches this year, 4-3. Experience has served the class of 2020 well, having clinched three of those matches and contributed 42 wins in singles and doubles this season. Regardless of the wins and losses, I am proud to be part of a program that competes as a team, that puts individual success below team success and works for each other. There is no better feeling in college tennis than clinching a match tied at 3-3 for your team, but those moments are only possible through efficient and purposeful practices. We have been good, but we will always keep striving for better.

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