By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation

The way Joey Scrivano sees it, the Baylor women's tennis team hit rock bottom a year ago when the Bears "never played with a healthy lineup the entire season" and finished 18-15 with a loss to Georgia in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

What that team lacked more than anything was depth. "Everybody knew, 'I'm playing,''' said Scrivano, who solved that problem by bringing in three newcomers to join the five returners from last year's lineup.

"The years that we are at our best, there's a competitive culture," he said. "Now, when you have that competition, you actually practice harder, you compete in practice and you're more coachable, because you know all those details will affect whether you get playing time or now. It becomes a real blessing when you actually earn the spot. When you know you're going to play, the details don't matter as much."

Matt Knoll has a similar situation with the men's team, which failed to make the NCAA Tournament Round of 16 for the first time since 2001. Easily the Big 12's most dominant team over the previous 15-plus seasons, the Bears finished 16-15 overall and tied for fifth in the sixth-team league at 1-4, also suffering a second-round loss at Georgia.

"We played with four players last year, that's tough," Knoll said. "Last year, we did a great job of kind of getting over ourselves around spring break time and getting on with the show, and then we started to really improve. If we can start to really improve as a group now, then by the end of the year we're going to be pretty good."

After reloading, including Scrivano bringing in a pair of newcomers at midyear, both teams will open dual-match play this weekend. The men kick it off with matches on Saturday against Incarnate Word and Grand Canyon at 1 and 6 p.m., respectively, with the women hosting UTRGV at noon and McNeese State at 3:30 p.m. Sunday at the Hurd Tennis Center.

"I don't want to act like dual matches are playing on Mars, but they're a little different," said Knoll, who added a pair of freshman from Germany, along with bringing back two players who were out last year.

"It's nice to get a dual match in as a new player and get a feel for what that's about and the team dynamic. That will give us a chance to get our feet on the ground. Certainly, the tennis at Sherwood was really high-level tennis, which is great. But, this format is a little different, so I think it will help us."

On the men's side, Baylor is ranked 22nd nationally and fifth in the Big 12 coaches' preseason poll, behind TCU, Texas, Okahoma and Oklahoma State. Senior Max Tchoutakian and sophomore Jimmy Bendeck are ranked 44th and 81st, respectively, while sophomore Juan Benitez swpe the singles and doubles title at last weekend's Sherwood Collegiate Cup in Thousand Oaks, Calif.

"This year, we've got seven really good players," Knoll said. "We feel like we're going to be back at our level. It's fun to be ranked lower than we think we deserve to be. We'll get a chance to prove, but we feel like we're going to have a chance to move up and hopefully be a factor before it's all over with."

The Big 12 Newcomer of the Year in 2015, Tchoutakian was a solid No. 2 for the Bears last season with a 15-7 dual-match record and 19-10 mark overall. He won the Jack Kramer Invitational in the fall and then lost to Benitez in the Sherwood Cup finals.

"(He's) a season guy, knows what to expect," Knoll said of Tchoutakian. "He's obviously getting It together and playing his best tennis."

Bendeck ranked second on the team last year with 24 singles wins, earning Most Improved and Academic Excellence awards at Thursday's tennis banquet. Redshirt sophomore Will Little and senior walk-on Tyler Stayer also return, joined by freshmen Constantin Frantzen and Bjoern Petersen and sophomore Johannes Schretter, who came back after a year off.

"I think as much as anything, it's for confidence of the team," Knoll said of the Bears' depth. "You feel like everything doesn't have to go exactly right against a top team to have a chance to win. If we go out and play normal, we feel like we have a great opportunity to win every match."

Benitez, who was 5-0 in singles and 4-0 in doubles at the Sherwood Cup, has the rare of combination of "ability, a capacity to work, and he's really coachable," Knoll said, "and I think we're just starting to see what he's about. We're just scratching the surface with Juan."

After the season-opening weekend, the Baylor men will travel to College Station to face 16th-ranked Texas A&M at 2 p.m. next Saturday, Jan. 28.

"I'd say (this is) as close a team as we've had in a long time," Knoll said, "particularly for this time of the year. I think once we get into the grind of having some tough situations, it will bring us together even more."

Scrivano is not discouraged by the women being fourth in the Big 12 coaches' preseason poll and unranked in the initial ITA national polls.

"It is what it is. This is where we are," he said. "(Baylor) men's basketball is the greatest example of that. What the heck does it matter what anybody thinks you're ranked? Either you have the goods, or you don't. The truth is going to come out on match day. And time will tell. I like our team, but I also know the process cannot be short-cutted."

It helps having senior Blair Shankle back at the top of the lineup. Last year's team MVP and a two-time doubles All-American, Shankle is ranked seventh in singles and 15th in doubles with sophomore Elizabeth Profit.

"She's a great role model and example for any of our student-athletes in our tennis program to see that if you stick with the process and you're committed, you can be one of the best players in the country," Scrivano said. "Blair walked in the door very humble, played (Number) 5 singles and just did her best in the role she was in. And she's done that every year. She never short-cutted the process, and the results speak for themselves. She's a success story."

Also back are Profit, fellow sophomore Karina Traxler and seniors Theresa Van Zyl and Rhiann Newborn, a Syracuse transfer who won the strength and conditioning and Becky Lindsey Award for Toughness and Perseverance.

"She's a player that is very ambitious and wants to be great, and she's very coachable," Scrivano said of Newborn. "I've seen a lot of growth in her over this past year. She's learning how to win on toughness and will."

Van Zyl, who was 6-1 last year at No. 5 singles, was named the Most Improved player. Profit was 5-1 in the fall after playing just six dual matches last season because of injuries. "She didn't see the court a lot last year, but she has a lot of promise," Scrivano said of Profit, who won the Under Armour/HEB Kickoff singles and doubles titles.

Freshman Jessica Hinojosa is 117th in the ITA rankings after a 6-2 fall record, while Scrivano brought in freshmen Jazzi Plews and Angelina Shakhraichuk as midyear additions.

The schedule allows the women to work their way into the season, with matches next month against No. 14 Michigan (Feb. 19), 12th-ranked Miami (Feb. 24) and No. 7 Ohio State. In addition to a conference slate that includes matchups against No. 5 Oklahoma State, 13th-ranked Texas Tech and No. 17 Texas, the Bears will also play No. 25 UCLA on March 4 in Waco, 18th-ranked USC on March 17 in the Oracle Cup at Indian Wells and No. 21 Texas A&M on March 22 in Waco.

"What I love about our schedule, and it's been very hard to do this in the past but this year worked out beautifully, is it just progressively gets a little tougher," he said. "It will be a progression and time will tell, and the truth will come out."

Live scoring and an in-match blog are available at www.baylorbears.com.