Photo courtesy of Paul Wilke
Today I had the pleasure to talk to Lindsay Holsen. Lindsay, a junior, is going into the Midwest Conference Championships with an impressive regular season under her belt. In the season Lindsay went 10-7 in singles and 8-6 with Katie Frankel in doubles. The Tennis team as a whole against conference opponents went 32-22 in singles and 14-13 in doubles. They are hoping to finish top four in conference this fall to play the conference tournament this spring.
Shane Farrell: You just competed against Ripon College, how do you feel you played?
Lindsay Holsen: It was solid tennis. There are always challenges to having matches rescheduled, but our team really stepped up and came out to play last week!
SF: You and your doubles partner, Katie, have gone 7-3 in the last ten matches. What has been the key to your success?
LH: Tennis is an extremely mental game and doubles adds the extra element of communication. We are both very different players, but we love the game and give full effort every match. That doesn’t always indicate that we win, but we at least work hard and try to leave everything possible on the court!
SF: What is your mindset less than two weeks away from the Midwest Conference Championships?
LH: There is a lot of anticipation going into conference! The season is so fast! I am just excited to hopefully play my best tennis of the season, see if I can live in the moment of every match, and maybe try to improve upon some of my scores or outcomes against certain teams/players from the results during the season. I really just want to focus on small successes—and try to ignore any double faults—and I want to have a blast!
SF: How do you feel the season has gone so far, individually and as a team?
LH: Our loss to Lake Forest (5-4) was really tough as it was a close match and a win would have allowed us to participate in team conference in the spring. However, overall we had a great season and I couldn’t ask for better teammates!
SF: What training will you participate in during the offseason?
LH: We still play indoors thanks to the one and only Fox Cities Racquet Club, but we will also be working with the strength coach. Most importantly, though Winter Term we definitely will get some sledding in and work on the throwing motion with some snowball fights. On the other hand, we are looking forward to playing tennis in Florida over spring break! Therefore, we have a bright future of tennis training to look forward to the rest of the year!
SF: What will you miss most once the season is over?
LH: The season always goes way too fast! It is strange readjusting to not eating Qdoba every weekend. However, we still play until we can’t feel our fingers so the season will be over, but not really over until it just gets too darn cold, and then we will still force the seniors to play with us all the way into the spring—especially under the lights at night.