The facility hosted its first women’s tennis tournament as MSU welcomed Northwestern, Xavier, Western Michigan, Eastern Michigan, DePaul and Marquette for the Spartan Invite from Oct. 2-4. Six Spartans competed across singles and doubles, combining for 14 match wins over the three-day tournament.

The weekend was less about establishing a final lineup than about seeing how a developing group handled competition together. Five of the six Spartans competed in their first home matches for MSU.

Freshmen Ariane Lesterhuis, Mengqiao Lu, Amiya Bowles, Nora Syrtveit and junior transfer Kinsey Crawford are new to the program. Junior Nina Plihal was the lone returning Spartan competing in the tournament.

Lesterhuis' 3-0 finish was the strongest singles result of the weekend, while Plihal, Crawford and Bowles each finished 1-2.

In doubles, Plihal and Syrtveit went 3-0, Lu and Bowles finished 2-0, and Lesterhuis and Crawford went 1-2.

The tournament was Lesterhuis' first competition for MSU. The support from her teammates, coaches, fans and family helped her adjust to the new environment, Lesterhuis said.

“It was an awesome weekend,” Lesterhuis said. “Obviously, this was my first time playing in a season at MSU and I thought it was absolutely incredible that I had the opportunity to go here and I could go 3-0. It was amazing to have a great support system with my team and my coaches helping me through it all.”

The home setting allowed the newcomers to experience how MSU’s team environment differs from the individual nature of tennis. The atmosphere was electric, and having teammates' support changed the experience of competing individually, Lesterhuis said.

Head coach Kim Bruno used the tournament to evaluate how the new group responded to situations that are difficult to recreate during practice. The weekend let the coaching staff see how its team handled pressure, adjusted during matches and competed alongside one another.

“I gathered a lot of information, saw a lot of really positive and bright spots,” Bruno said. “Loved the way that they just competed to the end. Did we execute our game plans all the time? No, but I think this was an important start. I think we won a lot, and we learned a lot as well, so we just have to be smart about how we’re moving forward in the next couple of weeks here.”

The coaching staff was looking beyond the results, Bruno said, using the tournament to evaluate where players missed shots, how they responded as matches tightened and how their mentality shifted during competition.

For the players, the tournament also introduced some of the differences between junior and collegiate tennis. Lesterhuis pointed specifically to no-ad scoring, where a game can be decided by a single point after reaching deuce.

“That’s the biggest difference between regular, junior tennis and college tennis,” Lesterhuis said. “All of a sudden it’s deuce and no-ad, and it’s sudden death, and you really want to fight for that point, because that point is very necessary to win if you want to win that set.”

The Spartan Invite was the second weekend of competition for MSU this fall, leaving the Spartans with more opportunities to evaluate the new group before the spring season. The team’s ability to compete for one another was an important takeaway from the weekend, Bruno said. 

“I just saw our girls fight for 40 hours out there and they were there for each other,” Bruno said. “That’s the most important part. If we can do that throughout the season, we’ll be quite successful. All these girls are talented players. We have to just start plugging all together in the same direction. It seemed like the girls really wanted to do that, which is refreshing.”

MSU continues its fall schedule at the ITA Midwest Regional Championships from Oct. 8-12 in Champaign, Illinois. The Michigan State Classic, the team’s second home tournament of the fall, is scheduled for Nov. 6-9 at Spartan Tennis.