The Alabama State men's and women's tennis teams will host Stillman College on Friday, February 1 at 1:30 p.m. at the Olean Black Underwood Tennis Center on the campus of ASU.
 
“Last year, we completely missed a recruiting class and even now we're still behind,” Head Coach Anuk Christiansz said. “Basically, from here on out, we can actually move forward and everything should be positive for us. We now can have full practices; whereas, last year we couldn't have full practices, so tremendous improvement in that regard.”
 
The Hornets (1-1) are coming off a great outing at the University of Alabama, dropping a 7-0 contest to UA while defeating conference rival Jackson State University by a score of 5-2. The men's team struggled against Alabama in its first contest of the season losing in both singles and doubles competition. ASU then bounced back winning two of its three doubles contests, and four of its six singles matches. Sophomore Bobby Brand led the way for ASU, won both in singles and doubles competition with the help of teammate Lex Pierre in doubles.    
 
I want us to come out strong and confident tomorrow,” Christiansz stated. “For a very young team, we'll just try to continue to get better week in and week out. We still have work to do, lots and lots of work to do as the season progresses.”
 
The Lady Hornets (0-1) fell to Mercer University 6-1 during their season home opener on last Saturday. ASU's freshman Arantxia Wijngaarde and Nathalie Lorenco overwhelmed Mercer's Natalie Franklin and Kealee Heffner by a score of 8-4 in the doubles competition. Freshman Katja Kraus was the only Lady Hornet to win in singles action over MU's Amanda Bertani (6-1, 6-4).
 
“I think the girls played fairly decent last weekend,” said Christiansz. “We should have closed out their number one squad in doubles. We were basically settling for the match and that was very positive for us. That momentum would have carried on in the singles match. Last year, we only won three singles matches, whereas now, we are looking better already.