Many collegiate tennis players on the quarter system lament the multiple tournaments and months of practice they lose due to their schools’ late openings. Not Catherine Harrison.
The reigning Pac-12 singles and USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships doubles champion, said that match play is the only real way to improve all aspects of her game, which comes with the opening of season competition.
Harrison heads to New York this week to compete in the 2015 USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships, where her first round match will be against Clemson’s Joana Eidukonyte. Harrison will look to avenge her second round 6-2, 6-3 loss to Eidukonyte at last year’s NCAA Division I Women’s Tennis Championship.
Harrison enters this tournament flying high off her runner-up finish in the 2015 USTA/ITA Southwest Regional Championships in October.
“(Harrison’s) game suits indoors because she likes to hit the ball hard on the fast courts,” said coach Stella Sampras Webster.
Harrison comes into the tournament with a few tweaks to her game. The senior refined and practiced her serving game this fall, coming in with multiple serves each with spin and kick, designed to make her serves a deadly part of her game.
“I got into a habit of using my serve to start a point, but now when you’re going against the top girls in the country it’s not a liability or anything, it just doesn’t hurt them,” Harrison said.
Challenges await Harrison in moving from the lower ranks to the number one position on the team. UCLA’s top seed understands the pressure that comes with being a number one.
“Beating a lot of girls who were No. 1s was a really great confidence boost, it reaffirmed that my (game) was good enough to play the top girls,” Harrison said. The 2015 USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships serves to be the final tune-up for Harrison before the season starts off in February.
Compiled by Ishan Ayyalasomayajula, Bruin Sports contributor