The men’s and women’s tennis teams have reached the half-way point of their fall 2014 season. So far the team’s have performed well and are continuing to make strides in the right direction.

During the fall, the Wildcat tennis teams compete in tournaments in an attempt to get better during the offseason. Schools normally put on these invitationals to improve their own players and invite other schools to play.

The actual season, including conference play and official rankings, doesn’t start until the spring semester, but that doesn’t mean the players from any school treat the exhibition tournaments lightly. The Wildcats have set out to get better this offseason to improve on their 17-10 overall record and their second-place earning conference record 5-1 record last season.

During the weekend of Sept. 12 and 13, the teams were split and competed in both the Racquet Club Invitational in Midland, and the Walmart Open at ACU.

The Midland Invitational was hindered by weather, but the Wildcats still came out of the tournament with multiple wins. Sophomore Nico Agritelley beat Srikar Alla, the No. 1 men’s singles player at Rice University, and junior Kaysie Hermsdorf and freshman Lucile Pothier had a 2-0 finish in doubles and reached the quarterfinals of the women’s doubles bracket.

At the Walmart Open, junior Nada Marjanovic won the women’s singles title and doubles title with sophomore Ansley Boarman. Freshman Paul Domanski won the flight No. 1 men’s singles title over Wildcat junior Marco Bensley. The team won five championships in the Walmart Open.

The next weekend, the teams were separated and the men went to the New Mexico State Invitational in Las Cruces, New Mexico while the women went up to Norman, Oklahoma for the Oklahoma Invitational.

The men’s standout player in New Mexico was the team’s lone senior, Gui Gesser who finished fourth in the invitational’s highest draw. Bensley and Domanski, the best Wildcat doubles players of the tournament, finished fourth in the doubles bracket.

The women’s team in Oklahoma had strong performances against high level collegiate players, including the play of Wildcat sophomore Erin Walker. Walker finished fourth with a 2-2 record in the invitational’s highest draw, while the Wildcat women’s doubles teams’ overall record of 8-4 was highlighted by the play of freshmen doubles duo of Whitney Williams and Carli Knezevich, who went 3-0 in their bracket.

Both teams will compete again on Oct. 16, when they travel to the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Regionals tournament in College Station.