EDINBURG – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) women's tennis team had been itching all summer long to get back on campus and turn its focus to getting off to a good start this fall.
 
"It's exciting," UTRGV head coach Sonia Hahn said. "The returners had been looking forward to coming back and I've looked forward to having our whole team back together and working together. Every year is a new learning experience. It's a new team chemistry and a new dynamic but is just so focused on working hard, competing hard, and doing well. I look forward to working with them."
 
The focus for UTRGV is to get back to the championship match of the Western Athletic Conference Tournament. UTRGV believes that focus has to start in the fall. In reality, that focus started the day after the WAC Tournament ended this past April. 
 
UTRGV fell just short of punching its second ticket to the NCAA Tournament. While UTRGV did earn the crown in the regular season, it wasn't satisfied with the outcome of the WAC Tournament. Coach Hahn knows it's a long time before then but it is something they think about.
 
"Every single day," Hahn said. "The day after the tournament this past April, I started thinking about what we needed to do to prepare and there are some things I would do differently to help prepare our team. I think our team understands what they have to do to prepare. We have to pace ourselves and try and focus on the tournament this year and I think things in the regular season will take care of themselves."
 
UTRGV has been to the championship match of the WAC Tournament twice in the last three years. Coach Hahn guided the team to a WAC Regular season title for the first time in program history while also earning the WAC Coach of the Year award. 
 
UTRGV has set a culture of excellence over the last few years and it is something that the team has embraced and that includes Coach Hahn.
 
"The culture has been set and had been set prior to me coming here," Hahn said. "I think the thing that has been the most important thing for our athletes on the team is that they have really been good about embracing the culture. It's one thing to have it intact and it's another thing to have your athletes embrace it. I think that is what they are continuing to do."
 
UTRGV brings back four from last year's squad in seniors Doris Aleksovska, Marine Darzyan, and Dominique Ibarra. Aleksovska and Ibarra were a part of both championship teams and each have helped build the culture to what it is. 
 
The returning seniors have a lot of experience under their belts and sophomore Alicia Thal was able to learn so much from her freshman season. That experience will help set the tone through the fall and into the spring and the returners will be vital this fall.
"I just want them to utilize the experience that they have gotten in the last few years," Hahn said. "Alicia is just a sophomore and is still continuing to learn but she gained a lot of experience being a freshman last year and the others have been around. I have two seniors in Dominique and Doris that have been on a WAC Tournament Championship team and a regular season WAC Championship so they have a wealth of experience to share with our freshmen."
 
UTRGV also adds a Michelle Walker, who is a senior who come to the program from Tyler Junior College. She has her own experience after helping Tyler JC to a Division II National Championship. 
 
Ana Platisa, Sandra Putz, Katarina Sarasoga, and Nethmi Waduge also join the squad this fall. The incoming group has hit the ground running and while they face challenges this spring, Coach Hahn has seen some good things from them so far. 
 
"I have seen a lot of improvement so far, especially from the freshmen," Hahn said. "It's been a tough transition for them coming in and almost starting practice immediately. The biggest thing for them is the environmental factors with the heat and humidity but they are starting to get acclimated. They are starting to have good practices and are starting to come together."
 
The main goal this fall is to build team trust and team chemistry. UTRGV will spend a lot of time on the court in between its three tournaments and with time Coach Hahn looks for the team to gel. 
 
The fall will be a period of learning for UTRGV as it stays focused on the WAC Tournament. 
 
"A lot of it has to do with working together as a team and trying to find the chemistry for the spring," Hahn said. "We just started practice so we are in the process of figuring out lineups and doubles pairings so it's going to be a lot of learning and developing and developing that team chemistry."
 
UTRGV will start off the fall with the Islander Open on September 14 before going to the ITA Regionals in College State in October and then closing out the fall with the Bearkat Invitational in November.
 
Coach Hahn hopes to use these tournaments to shake off any rust before the spring and to use them as learning experiences for the newcomers.
 
"The fall tournaments get our returners back on the focus of playing college matches," Hahn said. "I think it will be a great learning experience for our freshmen to understand the level of what college tennis is about. We will use the fall for learning and for experience not so much the wins and the losses at this point."
 
Coach Hahn will be looking closely at each member of the team. She hopes that by the end of the fall season that everyone will have made progress. That will determine if the fall was a success or not. 
 
"It's about progress and not about perfection," Hahn said. "For me, I see where they start and we are going to play three tournaments in the fall and I want to see this weekend how they compete and then in the last tournament in November, I want to see the progress that they have made."
 
For UTRGV, the journey to the WAC Tournament starts now.

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