The Washington University women’s tennis team is poised to improve on last season’s second round exit from the NCAA Championship with 11 returning athletes, including all of its starters.

“We’re coming in strong. We’re working a lot on match play. Hopefully our efforts will be rewarded,” senior captain Ania Tchergueiko said.

Five of the six primary singles players from last year’s team are now sophomores, and with senior Erin Swaller rounding out the field of starters, the team will have much more experience than last season.

Of last season’s starters, sophomore Elise Sambol was named to the University Athletic Association All-Association First Team for singles while classmates Jaclyn Bild and Karina Kocemba were named to the Second Team in doubles. The team also finished third in the UAA last season.

“We have a very deep team. It could be anybody [who steps up]. We’re all very close in level,” Tchergueiko said.

Aside from the depth provided by the returning athletes, the team has also added two freshmen and one junior and has been training all winter for the season, paying particular attention to added fitness and doubles play.

“We’re trying to work on playing more high percentage tennis…We’re trying to come out stronger and quicker, and when it gets close, we’re hoping that our fitness will help us stay more mentally tough,” Head Coach Kelly Stahlhuth said.

Since doubles is played before singles, the team is looking to improve its doubles play, especially at first doubles, where the Bears only recorded a victory 39 percent of the time last season.

“All 13 are very strong players, and they all have set individual goals, and they’re really trying to pick up their game…We were a young team last year, and we’re not quite as young this year, but I do think that we have more experience,” Stahlhuth added. Due to this added experience, she expects the team at the very least to match last season’s 17-6 record and hopefully improve upon it.

The No. 16 Bears played one dual match this fall, a 5-4 win against No. 19 Coe College. The teams first spring match this Sunday at No. 12 DePauw University will also provide an immediate challenge to the still-developing team.

“It’s not a cakewalk. They’re ranked ahead of us, so they’ve got the pressure on them, and I think that we’re actually ready for them, which is good considering the match is so early in the season…It will tell us what we are doing right and what we need to work on in the next three weeks,” Stahlhuth said.

The rest of the schedule will not get much easier for the Bears, as they will face five currently-ranked teams this season, including fall No. 1 Williams College, who the Red and Green will face along with two other ranked opponents at the Emory University Fab Five Tournament on March 27-29.

Wash. U. is also the fourth-ranked team in the fall Intercollegiate Tennis Association national rankings in the UAA. Emory currently sit at No. 4 while Carnegie Mellon University is No. 8 and the University of Chicago is No. 15. “We can’t really focus on [our ranking],” sophomore Kristin Fleming said. “We just want to focus on playing well and proving that we do deserve to be ranked early on.”

For now, the team is focused on this Sunday’s match at DePauw and then the three-week period in between matches which will be used to train.

“We’re just going to go out there this weekend and do our best…to improve our doubles play,” Tchergueiko said.

With additional reporting by Johann Qua Hiansen