{"id":1803,"date":"2018-03-25T23:18:10","date_gmt":"2018-03-26T04:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/?p=1803"},"modified":"2018-03-27T11:16:54","modified_gmt":"2018-03-27T16:16:54","slug":"bradley-womens-tennis-gears-up-for-conference-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/2018\/03\/25\/bradley-womens-tennis-gears-up-for-conference-play\/","title":{"rendered":"Bradley Women\u2019s Tennis Gears Up for Conference Play"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If one could narrow down the Bradley tennis team\u2019s season into one word, it would be promise. With plenty of young players and new face in the coaching staff, the Bradley tennis team has more prosperous days at the end of tunnel following this season.<\/p>\n<p>Although Bradley women\u2019s tennis sits at low record wise before conference play, the young roster is planning to pave the way for a dynamic future. Of the eight players on Bradley\u2019s tennis team, three of them are freshmen. At the tip of the spear is Sandra Maletin, a freshman from Belgrade, Serbia who is ranked as highly as third in her home country.<\/p>\n<p>Alongside Maletin are Kinga Kovacs and Victoria Gonzalez, who are from Hungary and Bolivia respectively. These three are planned to be the future that Bradley is investing into their program.<\/p>\n<p>However, despite Bradley\u2019s current overall three wins and eleven loss record, the statistics do not tell the full story as the team enters conference play. Unfortunately, the injury bug has bitten the team several times throughout this year. Head coach Matt Tyler expects a strong season run once the team comes back from their injuries.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFirst and foremost, we have got to get healthy,\u201d said head coach Matt Tyler, \u201cwe have been battling a lot of injuries and illnesses. A lot of our girls are playing at 75 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Coach Tyler has big goals for this season and the women that he coaches. Now in his fifth season with the team, he has made the goals of the 2017-2018 season clear.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur number one overall goal is to try and win a conference title,\u201d said Tyler, \u201cthat is a big deal for us. It would be the first time in Bradley\u2019s women tennis history.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Just as much as Matt Tyler has been putting his faith into his team, the team has been putting their faith into their coach. Senior Alexa Brandt has enjoyed her fourth season under Coach Tyler.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe has been a very positive coach,\u201d said Brandt, \u201cHe is patient, nice and accommodating.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Brandt has not been the only player who has heaped onto Coach Tyler. Junior Malini Wijesinghe spoke highly of the coaching staff as well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey do not emphasize wins and losses,\u201d said Wijesinghe, \u201cinstead it\u2019s about how you are feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Coach Tyler\u2019s decision to not place emphasis on wins and losses does not just end on the court though.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a philosophy that they carry through our whole life,\u201d said Wijesinghe, \u201cThey want us to feel good socially, academically, and off the tennis court.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For Alexa Brandt, who is entering her last season on the Bradley Tennis team, the culture of the team that Coach Tyler has put into place has kept her hopeful for conference play.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt has been nice having a great team environment and a great coach as well,\u201d said Brandt, \u201cit is going to be a good season.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bradley\u2019s women tennis team will play at Illinois State on March 31<sup>st<\/sup> to open up their conference season.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"COM 360 MMP #1\" width=\"352\" height=\"198\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5Oa0H61zlh8\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If one could narrow down the Bradley tennis team\u2019s season into one word, it would be promise. With plenty of young players and new face in the coaching staff, the Bradley tennis team has more prosperous days at the end of tunnel following this season. Although Bradley women\u2019s tennis sits at low record wise before conference play, the young roster is planning to pave the way for a dynamic future. Of the eight players on Bradley\u2019s tennis team, three of them are freshmen. At the tip of the spear is Sandra Maletin, a freshman from Belgrade, Serbia who is ranked as highly as third in her home country. Alongside Maletin are Kinga Kovacs and Victoria Gonzalez, who are from Hungary and Bolivia respectively. These three are planned to be the future that Bradley is investing into their program. However, despite Bradley\u2019s current overall three wins and eleven loss record, the statistics do not tell the full story as the team enters conference play. Unfortunately, the injury bug has bitten the team several times throughout this year. Head coach Matt Tyler expects a strong season run once the team comes back from their injuries. \u201cFirst and foremost, we have got to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","hentry","category-general","post_format-post-format-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/178"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1803"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1816,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1803\/revisions\/1816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}