The Missouri tennis team cruised to a 7-0 victory over Denver Friday night at the Green Tennis Center in Columbia.
The win puts the team at 5-1, after dominating performances in both doubles and singles.
“Today’s overall performance was amazing,” interim coach Steven Stuckenschneider said. “I mean we won every match, so you know you can’t really ask for much better than that.”
The evening started off with a doubles sweep, with a comeback 8-6 win from senior captains Kaitlyn Ritchie and Mallory Weber, and an 8-2 win from freshman Marlen Hacke and junior Jamie Mera.
“Kaitlyn and I started a little slow, but we came back well,” Weber said. “We knew we could win that match and we were just happy to put it together in the end.”
Despite their slow start tonight, Ritchie believes the senior duo is a balanced match.
“We feed off each other,” Ritchie said. “There are definitely times when I’m making more errors and she’s keeping us up, or she’s making more errors and I’m more solid. We definitely keep each other in balance. When somebody hits a good shot, the other one gets excited and that energy is what fuels us to come back.”
Ritchie won her match in the number one slot 7-5 and 6-4, while Weber won in the number two slot 6-1 and 6-0.
Other top performances came from Hacke (6-4, 6-4), Mera (6-2, 6-1), and sophomore Maria Christensen (6-2, 6-0).
“Today you’ve got to give the gold star to the entire team,” Stuckenschneider said. “Everyone was just very steady today and the score reflected that.”
Missouri’s next match proves to be much tougher, as they face No. 65 Iowa at home on Sunday.
“Iowa is a really exciting match. It’s definitely a match that we have a lot of opportunities in,” Ritchie said.
The tennis team has had troubles in the past against ranked teams, with a recent nail biting loss to then No. 52 Purdue last Sunday
“We belong with the rest of the country,” Stuckenschneider said. “We just missed against Purdue last Sunday. In order to get that belief that you belong with those teams, it takes a win or two against them, just playing more teams of that caliber and coming out ahead. What we’re trying to tell these girls on a daily basis is that we got the game.”