We began our week after a tough weekend playing matches. We spent a lot of energy because playing both Saturday and Sunday isn't that easy. Our Saturday match against Columbia opened up my eyes to a lot of things. At this point, I realized how important it is to act as a team. Before that, our opponents at home weren't that strong. This time, we faced a team that was ranked in top 60. It was a challenging match for us, and I felt like what we needed to do was stay together, but under the pressure that Columbia created by being energetic, we were really quiet.  The coaches tried to explain to us that our main problem, wasn't technique, physical condition, or that we were much weaker then Columbia. We just simply needed to be more energetic and aggressive in positive way. After our coaches talked to us, I had a lot to think about on the Saturday night. I think we all did.

The most important thing is that we didn't give up! We had a team talk, and decided to try bring our team together. It is really tough goal for Coach Panova and ourselves to make a team out of five freshman, even though for Sarah it's a second semester. So during our talk, we tried to find our weak spots, and came to conclusion that we should spend more time together! So on Saturday night the baby Terps (freshmen), Vroni and Welma watched a movie in the team room. Sarah picked the movie and proved that she has great taste because everybody seemed to enjoy watching it!

Spending time together helps a lot. It helps us to get to know each other more, and helps the veterans teach baby Terps what it's like to be a team. We could see the progress on the court the next day as we beat Richmond 6-1!

We had the following Monday off, to rest and think over our recent experience. It was important to start our week off well, so we could move forward and get stronger before our upcoming match against VCU. We had to work a lot on our energy, and our coaches gave us a lot of exercises for that so we could practice our cheering and acting as a team. We actually practiced for the first time outside on Wednesday. What a great feeling! So much more freedom. I hope that spring will come soon and that warm weather will come with it!

Friday morning we headed to Richmond. It was a long trip, but we seemed to enjoy it, playing songs, talking and making jokes. During lunch before the match, everybody looked exited to play against such a great team. You could see that we were a team and even the waitress tried to join our conversation because it looked very energetic and fun. We came on court with a different attitude, ready to fight and support each other! Although you could see we were a little nervous, because the doubles started a little tight. It was the second time Gabi and I had played together and it was still sometimes confusing, but we were trying hard and I'm sure we will get much better with a little more team effort and time. We will get much stronger. In singles, we showed so much more energy than before! Our opponents might have been a little more consistent, but the way we were acting on the court, it looked like we had won. Losing 4-3 wasn't that bad because we really showed the improvement in our attitude.

During the weekend we got some rest and we are now ready to work hard, be energetic, and have fun as a team on and off the court. We have to enjoy hitting every ball, as Coach Panova said, that's where the energy will come from. Now we know that and will work on improving our tennis skills for our next match against Virginia on Saturday!

Lets go Terps!

Olga