The Stony Brook Women’s tennis team picked up four singles victories and a doubles win during the Stony Brook Classic, the opening tournament of their season.
In its sixth year running, the Classic included the most teams and about 80 players since its inception, including Bryant College, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Colgate University and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
The 10 teams in attendance are some of the top private universities in the America East Conference. For the first time in the history of the women’s tennis program, the Seawolves were the conference champions last spring.
Chloe Pike, of Bristol, England, was there to see it as a junior.
“It would be great if we did win the conference again,” said Pike at the Classic. “If we could do that again for my senior year that’d be a pretty awesome way to go out.”
While always keeping an eye on their main goal of holding onto the title, Coach Gary Glassman is focusing on improvement this fall.
“We’re going to need to stay healthy and keep working very hard, which they’ve done a good job of so far,” he said.
The Classic gives the team a chance to show off their skills and campus.
“It gives our campus exposure too, so we have schools from all over the Northeast, kids that may never have seen this campus, their parents as well, so hopefully they’re going to go back and say good things because we have such a beautiful campus and a beautiful facility,” Glassman said.
Spreading the word of Stony Brook’s tennis program may be vital to increasing the ratio of local players, a goal that is being developed with the verbal commitment of two players from the United States, one from Manhattan, and the other from Illinois.
Three-quarters of the current team are foreign players, originating from Paris to Kiev, Ukraine, a widespread trend among Division I tennis teams.
As the program gains success, increased funding allows for the curation of more valuable scholarships for potential players. This trend is seen across the athletic spectrum, such as basketball and baseball, two programs that also broke records with their performance in the past year.
“Everybody understands the level of commitment that you’re making when you come to Stony Brook as a student and as an athlete,” Glassman said. “That’s why we’re seeing this success all across the board.”
