Diverse women's tennis team preparing for conference tournament

Mark Wesselink knows that his team is unique.

International players comprise more than half of Richmond’s women’s tennis team, with six different countries represented on a roster of just nine players. Wesselink, the team’s head coach, worked to put together a team blending American and international talent.

The transition was hardly seamless, but eventually the players overcame all of the cultural differences and other practical obstacles. Anna Abadías Morales, a junior from Spain, said the communication and language posed the largest problems for her in the beginning.

“Just the communication part besides the language barrier were tough,” Abadías Morales said of her first few months at Richmond. “It’s more about cultural things, like some people get offended easier by some things and others don’t because of their culture, but I think we’re all very open-minded we all understand all of that stuff.”

Recruiting this team posed several challenges, the largest being that University of Richmond is not well-recognized in other countries. Wesselink said he had to work hard to sell the school to prospective players.

“It’s tough because we don’t have a big edge internationally,” Wesselink said. “The international players, they don’t really know the difference between us and – I won’t even say another school.”

Wesselink emphasized the importance of finding student-athletes who understand and appreciate Richmond’s pedigree. He also said that he took academics into account when recruiting, and whether a player’s language skills were adequate to handle the workload.

Although the academics at Richmond might narrow the scope of recruitment, they also serve as a selling point for many recruits, international or otherwise. Wesselink affords his players many opportunities to focus on academics and life outside of tennis.

Senior Melissa Kandinata recognizes this as a rarity in the world of college athletics. “He wants us to be well-rounded,” Kandinata said. “I don’t think that happens as much at other schools.”

Though he wouldn’t allow anything that hinders a player’s tennis development, Wesselink sees a need for players to cultivate interests beside tennis. He said part of it was Richmond’s strict academic requirements, but he also makes a point of encouraging players to study abroad and get internships.

“I give them some opportunities,” Wesselink said. “Just to have a little bit of a life outside of tennis so they’re not so one-dimensional, because I think when you go out in the real world, unless you’re gonna be a pro, it’s nice to have some other skills.”

After winning 11 of its first 13 matches, including a streak of eight wins, the Spiders have lost the last four matches of the regular season.

Despite the losing streak, this year’s 11-7 record is a solid improvement over last year’s 9-13 season, in which the Spiders lost in the A-10 quarterfinal to UMass. Wesselink said he thought the team was primed to outperform last year’s conference tournament performance, provided the team stays healthy.

“If we’re healthy and we can close out the rest of our season the way we've been playing up to this point and keep making the improvements, that’s the key to A-10s,” Wesselink said.

There were few bright spots for last year’s Spiders. Emily Gitman and Nil Horoz, two key rotation players, both missed substantial time because of injuries and the Spiders lost their highest number of games in a season since 2008.

But Wesselink said he believed that last year’s trials forced players to step into larger roles and made the team stronger for this season.

“If adversity builds character, then this team got a lot of character last year,” he said.

The first round of the A-10 Championship begins on April 16.