It doesn’t take much to be successful. Maybe just three things: intelligence, hard work and a little luck.

How much luck the Syracuse tennis team will have remains to be seen, but it appears SU is already two-thirds of the way toward a successful season.

After spending much of the fall participating in exhibition tournaments, the Orangewomen have prepared sufficiently. And recently, Syracuse proved it has some brains, too.

‘We just found out,’ Syracuse head coach Mac Gifford said, ‘that we’re the highest GPA-graded team of any other in the athletic department.’

Since the Orangewomen can’t increase their luck, they’ll be spending the upcoming weekend in yet another exhibition tournament to become more prepared for Big East matchups.

The Orangewomen will spend their weekend in Ithaca competing in the annual Cornell Invitational Tournament.

Though Syracuse won its first match of the season — a 6-1 victory over Colgate on Wednesday night — SU is relishing the chance to get more game experience.

‘We’re [about] to get into the hard part of the season,’ Gifford said, ‘[and the tournament] is better than practice. It’s good competition, and it’s a good chance for us to go out as a team.’

The tournament also gives SU a chance to stay competitively sharp. After spending the fall working out the kinks, Syracuse used the winter break to relax and recuperate.

‘It’s good to get some matches in,’ sophomore Kristine Bech Holte said, ‘because we haven’t been playing since November.’

The Orangewomen will focus on specific game situations.

‘We need to work on … closing out the matches,’ senior Daniela Kaluskova said, ‘and trying to focus and be in the game the whole time.’

While this intelligent, hard-working team can’t predict how lucky it’ll be this season, SU realizes that the better prepared it is, the less luck it will need.

‘It’s about seeing what kind of shape we’re in,’ Gifford said, ‘[and] seeing what kind of match toughness we’re in.’

Published on January 30, 2003 at 12:00 pm