ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Near the end of last season, at the end of a match, an opposing coach watched UNM with six freshmen in the lineup go toe-to-toe with their opponent. That coach grabbed UNM head coach Stephanie Wooten-Quijada and made sure all those players freshmen. After confirming that was indeed the case, the coach told Wooten-Quijada “You guys are going to be scary good real soon.”
Real soon starts this weekend.
All six freshmen that lettered return for UNM, along with the lone upperclassmen Ruth Copas as the Lobos under third-year head coach Stephanie Wooten-Quijada open the 2018-19 season at the ITA Bedford Cup in the Mountains, hosted by Air Force. That tournament in the opening one in a 2018-19 schedule that Wooten-Quijada released on Wednesday.
Copas missed a small portion of the 2018 spring season while playing for Ireland in the Fed Cup, and her experience and leadership will be needed on a team with eight underclassmen on the roster.
Back for UNM are three sophomore tandems in Lauren Rich and Danielle Quevedo of Texas, Yue Lin “Polly” Chen and Hsaing-Wen “Albie” Huang from Taiwan, and Bronte Murgett and Natasha Munday from the United Kingdom. All six had winning singles records in 2017-18, and Murgett and Quevedo tied for the team lead in wins with 17 each. Murgett, Rich and Huang all led with 17 doubles wins.
The rookies were very good, and now they are all a year older, and combined with Copas and newcomer Maddie Chavez, the Lobos will use the fall to get better, get more experience and ready themselves for the spring.
“I love the team we have,” said Wooten-Quijada. “The experience we gained last year was invaluable, and I’ve already seen the improvement from last year to this year. I’m really excited to see how we fare in the fall tournament season.
That fall tournament season starts this weekend at Air Force and continues next weekend at New Mexico State. UNM will also compete in the fall at ITA Regionals and in its own Halloween Invitational.
The spring season opens in January and features a great slate, including road matches against Baylor, TCU, Denver, Colorado, Utah, BYU and Texas Tech. UNM will play eight of its 18 matches at home, including regional rivals UTEP, New Mexico State and Northern Arizona.
“Our schedule is really tough this season, especially on the road,” said Wooten-Quijada. “We need to be able to consistently improve, and do that quickly because our schedule is a real challenge, but I think we are up for it.”
To support the women’s tennis team this season please follow the link to join the UNM Lobo Aces Club and donate to the UNM Women’s Tennis Team https://www.unmfund.org/fund/wtennis/. If you donate please message Stephanie Wooten-Quijada at stephaniewq@unm.edu so he can track your donation.
Women’s Opens 2018-19 Play at Air Force
