DALLAS – There was a time when swinging a tennis racket brought a grimace to Hadley Doyle's face.
A lingering injury to her bicep and labrum left the SMU senior in extreme discomfort playing a game she loves. Offseason surgery between her sophomore and junior years helped fix the injury. Time helped rebuild her confidence.
And headed into the 2023 spring season, Doyle's confidence in herself and the Mustang program is reaching new heights.
After closing out the 2022 spring season with five straight singles victories, Doyle notched a 12-2 record in summer matches. She also spent the offseason working with newly hired assistant coach Blair Shankle, someone she has known since she was 12, to fine tune her game and regain her comfort on the court.
That led to an 11-3 record in SMU's fall competition and a spot in the ITA top 125 singles rankings.
"Over the summer, coaches Nevolo and Shankle spent endless time with me helping me figure things out and I think mentally I'm at a place where I'm a senior and I've kind of figured it out. I've put in all the work and now I trust myself," Doyle said.
Stories like that are the common thread for SMU women's tennis heading into Friday's spring opener with TCU. Following the disruption of COVID in recent years, fourth-year coach Jeff Nevolo placed an emphasis on more individual summer work in 2022, followed by a commitment to play as many fall tournaments as possible to prepare for the spring season.
Over five fall events, including a trip to the Gamecock Invitational in South Carolina, the Mustangs won 77 of the 110 matches they played, with multiple players recording 10 or more victories. Nevolo highlighted the significant strides made by returning players like Drew Morris, Lana Mavor and Reka Patel, while new additions like Maja Makoric (Nebraska) and Taylor Johnson (UCLA) assimilated quickly into the team culture. Along with Doyle's singles ranking, the teams of Johnson and Jackie Nylander, and Mavor and Winslow Huth earned top 40 spots in the ITA top 60 doubles rankings.
Now, the focus is on maintaining and building off that momentum.
"While there were some really great things on paper, we felt like we were operating like a high-level team by the end of the fall just in terms of our investment in each other and the way we competed. We saw a lot of growth in that regard," Nevolo said.
The ultimate goal of the summer and fall work has been to avoid what occurred at the end of the 2022 spring season. SMU finished the campaign with a 15-9 overall record, earned a No. 2 seed in the AAC Tournament and a No. 44 ITA national ranking.
An unfortunate loss to Tulsa in the semifinals of the AAC Tournament ended the season abruptly as the NCAA did not award the Mustangs an at-large bid despite a solid résumé.
It's a moment the returning players haven't forgotten but aren't harping on. Their focus is on what's ahead and they are confident there's some great things on the horizon.
"Everybody on the team is very driven and motivated, not just to finish what we started last year but build on that and do more than that," Doyle said. "I think our expectations for our team are a lot higher and we have big goals that we know we can achieve."
