DALLAS – Over the last few years, SMU men's tennis has made significant strides under coach Grant Chen, culminating with an NCAA Tournament berth last spring.
For the Mustangs, college tennis as a whole has also made similar progress, making SMU's path to continued success a bit more difficult.
Fortunately, it's a reality the team has learned to handle.
"Talk about being battle tested, we certainly have been. We've just had a lot of great matches – some of them we've just come up a little bit short," Chen said. "It's the parody in college tennis and it shows where everyone is at. A couple points here and there and you're on the cusp of being No. 20 in the country. And you're a couple matches from being No. 90 in the country. I think it shows where the sport has come and how the game has evolved and the depth."
Heading into the AAC Tournament on Friday, the fourth-seeded Mustangs (15-13 overall, 2-4 AAC) have managed to string together four straight victories to wrap up the regular season, three of which came against opponents ranked in the ITA top 75.
The biggest of those came on April 9 when the Mustangs picked up a victory at Memphis, the top seed going into the AAC Tournament. A few hours later, the team returned home and beat UT Dallas on senior night.
Chen called the Memphis win a needed "injection of energy" as it snapped a four-match losing streak and served as a launching pad for the team's recent success. While the team's 6-9 record against ITA ranked foes has SMU hopeful going into the tournament, it's experience the team is relying on. The team sits at No. 51 in the latest ITA rankings heading into the postseason.
Last year, the Mustangs won their first conference tournament title since 2004, putting them back in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2017. With much of that team returning, SMU knows what it takes to win three matches in three days.
Chen's mantra has been not to focus on wins and losses in the regular season but to build off the experience and play for the conference tournament and play for May. It's a message players have taken to heart.
"We have guys that have seen the ups and downs of college tennis. That's a nice thing to have obviously, especially when you're dealing with losses. It definitely hurts when we lose, but we can kind of pick ourselves up and the very next match we can give it our all once again and be knocking on that door," senior Jordi Redelijk said. "I think that gives us confidence going into the conference tournament knowing we can put the pieces together and beat some top teams."
