There are many ways to build a non-conference schedule.
Unafraid of a challenge, Ole Miss Coach Beyers
fashioned one that featured two powerhouse programs
from the Big 12, back to back days,
back to back matches. The Rebels would soon know
where they stood early on in their 2020 season.
[Cheering].
Let's go. It's time to get to work.
Move it. Go. Come on, Frenchies.
Let's go, ladies.
[Music].
Yeah, get those legs going right away, guys, light on these feet.
Good, Vic. Good job, kiddo.
Good ball. Way to bend that front knee there.
Good. Oh.
That's not even like anything special for Vic anymore,
just doing that every day all day.
Good ball. All right, Sabi. Try to close a little bit more.
Good hand there on that first one.
Yeah, just compact and using that pace.
Don't feel like you have to add to that ball.
When she hits it that big, do that side.
You just want to use that pace. Here we go.
You guys are doing a great job for work-wise,
great job with that intensity level.
Enjoy that challenge, guys. We got this. Come on, focus.
Don't feel like you can counterattack
on every single ball. Some of them, just play neutral
just like you would in a normal rally.
That's it, ten, good job. Good job.
Hey, way to make some defensive balls there as well.
Six. Oh, that's a great ball, Anneshka.
Nine. Ten. So easy.
It wasn't maybe ten balls, it was like 13 balls.
All right, what do we think? Good?
Again, we talk about you do different drills,
some drills maybe aren't you favorite.
Sometimes you work on certain things that are your favorite.
Sometimes you work on things that you don't like that much.
Have that attitude that from every single drill, I can learn.
Every single drill, I can take steps.
We talked about taking steps. That starts in practice.
We can't only, you know, feel like we're staying the same
and feel like, oh, in matches
I'm going to pick it up a notch and take a step and get better.
I like the attitude a lot.
I thought it was really good, really good stuff.
You know, even when we're dealing with adversity
in some of these. In matches, there's going
to be adversity as well that we have to deal with.
So how we handle that is also going to dictate
how we handle adversity come Friday,
come Saturday, when it's, you know, for real.
Good job. Good job. Good job, kiddo. Good job.
As the Rebels get into the swing of the new season,
the SEC Big 12 weekend
means another top team have their eye on a win.
There it is. Hey, that's it.
That's the one we want. Good job. Good job.
Please do this in the match. Holy crap.
I was a little nervous going into that match.
It's a big match, big weekend.
And I know they're a good team. They're a well-coached team,
so you know they're going to fight and their going to scrap
and give you everything they've got.
So, we knew it was going to be a big weekend.
I think everybody on the team was pretty excited about it.
We had plenty of practice beforehand,
so I felt pretty confident going into those two matches.
Oh, he's here. I didn't know he was here.
You can tell, if you get someone
on their team to break a racquet,
Yaya's on me, Yaya's on me, whatever he wants.
But Ole Miss fans were not the only ones raiding Galtney
that afternoon.
The fiery Texas Tech team came out swinging early in the match.
[Music].
It was a pretty tight match. We had a lot of opportunities.
We played a lot of deuce balls that we lost.
You know, working with Anna and Terk, they've been great.
I always love being on court with them.
A couple points here and there, you know,
and we had a couple points
where I really wish we could have put it away,
but it's doubles and it's one set,
and you're live, it goes quick. We approach it the same way.
You know, we've got to play six points, you know.
Each person has to kind of take care of business.
You know, right now, I think singles is our strength anyway.
[Music].
Mark talked to us after the doubles play,
he was like, let's reset, start from the beginning,
and get everyone on the right track
and just believe in yourself
and start from the beginning in the single matches.
Let's go. Ah.
I told Sabi, I mean, first set, she cruised pretty good.
She was playing really well.
She got a lot of free points, and I knew after that set,
I knew this girl was going to make an adjustment,
and I think we talked about, like, being ready for war.
Listen, what do I always tell you?
Second set is going to be war; right?
It's going to be a war; all right?
Prepare yourself mentally.
[Music].
I always try not to look at the scoreboard,
but, obviously, I always do.
With Anna, she's been in this situation so many times,
so when she loses that first set, I'm not concerned.
During my match, I wasn't really thinking about like
since I won the second set 6-1,
then it's about the confidence, so I felt confident.
Yes, Anna. She jumped out to a 4-1 lead
pretty quickly in that second set.
I know Anna is capable of playing at a high level
for a very long period of time.
It's tough for her opponents to keep that level up,
because she plays pretty physical and pretty grueling.
The longest match of the day came down to court two.
The whole match was really close. It was neck and neck.
A few times I had her where I thought I had her,
and then I kind of let my foot off the gas,
which got me a few times.
I had a feeling that Alexa's match
is going to be the last one, just because her first set took
maybe an hour-and-a-half.
I think I was done before she even finished her first set,
or about the same time maybe.
Once she won that set, I felt pretty confident in her.
I could see her body language really jumped up.
She brought a lot more energy.
She was really pumped about winning that first set,
and the other girl just looked a little bit deflated.
No. I saw the last match,
and it was five ball in the second set,
so I knew I had to go immediately
to help her finish the match.
The emotions were, like, up and down, the tempo.
And I was confident we are going to win,
then the confidence dropped a little bit.
So, we're trying to get the ball up on the forehand,
and then from there,
try to get a few short balls that we can dictate with,
and from there, you're just trying to move her
as much as you can and draw as many that way.
Thank you.
I think that was really good for all of us.
It was great for our freshmen to kind of experience
what a big win at home feels like.
And, yeah, I mean, it's always great to win
in front of a big crowd, and, of course,
against a Big 12 team, so that was exciting.
First of all, congrats, like,
coming back after that doubles point,
make sure you never give up on yourself first and foremost.
What I like to see, if we lose the first set,
can we turn around the match. Trust yourself.
Even when you don't play at your best, you can win.
You're good enough to win.
We do that and we're going to get to score a lot of times,
and it's going to be different people
that are going to be called upon to get us to four.
But keep taking steps. Whether you played well,
whether you didn't play as well, whether you won,
whether you lost, tomorrow you're coming in ready to work.
And we get to play at home again.
Go have some fun. Okay. Go Rebs on three.
One, two, three. Go Rebs. Good one.
Back in black, the Rebels return to Galtney
looking to score another Big 12 victory.
[Music].
In the basket.
Oh. I was pumped.
I was excited to win again, again at home.
We were ready for a battle, you know,
and it ended up being one of the most entertaining matches,
and it was a battle. Right from the start.
Get up on these guys. Here we go Rebs.
Go Rebs on three. One, two, three. Go Rebs.
We wanted a match with a strategy
that we really wanted to focus on doubles,
and we ended up winning the doubles point,
so that helped a lot.
Now we put ourselves in the position
where we win one of those close doubles' points,
and so now you only have to win three.
Grant actually made a comment to the girls,
he said, you know the work is just starting.
And he was totally right.
Setting singles up for success led the Rebels
to an early 3-to-1 lead.
[Music].
The 1-0 became 3-1 pretty quickly,
but then you're looking to see who else
is able to come through.
I had lost the first set pretty close,
and I really wanted to come back
and win the match, because I was looking around,
and I knew it was going to be a really close match,
and maybe it was going to come down to me.
Well, as we all lined up next to her court,
it really got loud and we just had to support her.
[Music].
[Cheering].
Front strikes; right? That's all we can do.
That's why college tennis is fun.
I was always just playing for myself
and never really had a team. It was super fun.
I'd never felt anything like it,
having all these people supporting me.
[Cheering].
I think when it comes down to a match like this,
it's also a little bit about luck,
and I think it could have gone either way.
Unfortunately for us, it didn't work this time.
[Cheering].
All those things, you did a great job.
This is going to happen again.
You want to be in the situation with the ball and your racket,
and that's what you want as a competitor and a player.
You come to college tennis to be that person;
three-all duel match comes down to your match.
I know you weren't on the winning end of that one.
You handled your nerves like a pro, I'm telling you.
That's so valuable for her to have been in that situation,
and we talked after the match, and I told her that, you know,
I'm proud of the way she competed.
I'm proud of the way she handled the pressure.
These moments are going to your best college moments,
and also your toughest. I hope she took it well,
because we were all impressed, as her teammates,
watching a freshman who just came in January
be put on the hot seat. I'm actually excited,
because now I know kind of how it goes and how it feels,
and I feel like since I was put in position and I was so close,
I'm definitely, like, ready to be put in that position again
and come out on top. She's going to learn from this,
and that's the biggest thing for the whole team.
This weekend when you have those matches, win 4-3,
lose 4-3, those are matches that you're going to grow from,
that you're going to get better from.
And later on, when we play in the SEC,
we're going to need that type of experience
to be able to come up with some similar-type wins.
[Music].
That's for art class. This is an art form right here.
If Grant would stop missing.
Here we go.
[Cheering].
I'm trying to play regular form.
Wow.
Unless something drastic changes,
stick with it; all right?
Let's go. Hey, hold up. Let's go.