WIESBADEN, Germany - Stuttgart’s boys tennis team swept its counterpart from Wiesbaden during a generally-impressive display from the visitors Saturday.
Sean Bushong, John Grady and Even Stuber led the way for the Panthers, winning all of their matches easily, 6-4, 6-1; 8-1; and 8-0, respectively.
“I felt very confident,” Bushong said. “I got my serve in well, and I think I just played really well today.”
On his team’s dominance on the boys’ side, Bushong said cohesion and effort are the key.
“We just support each other,” he said, “and we practice really hard.”
On the girls side, last year’s European champion Marissa Encarnacion and runner-up Marina Fortun both appear to be in top form as the season moves along. Encarnacion made quick work of Wiesbaden’s Cassandra Pritchett, 6-0, 6-0, and Fortun did likewise to her opponent, Grace Wagner, 8-1, at the same place they finished 1-2 at last year’s European championships. Stuttgart took six of the nine matches Saturday.
“It was interesting to be back on the surface where Europeans was played on,” Encarnacion said. “It’s a very unique type of carpet, because it’s really grainy, so it’s sometimes a different game here than on a hard court like Stuttgart.”
Encarnacion has been working on her game in the offseason and that’s bad news for opponents.
“I think my serve has definitely improved, it’s definitely faster,” she said. “I also think that my backhand has improved as far as pace goes, I used to hit more of a slower backhand, but I think my strokes have pretty much evened out.”
For Wiesbaden, it was a second straight matchup against the elite of Division I, having faced the International School of Brussels the prior weekend.
However, despite some tough scorelines, coach Tom Rooney says he sees some promising signs from his players.
“I can see the difference (from last week) already,” he said. “We’re not playing in any way intimidated and this is certainly one of the strongest teams in Division I. I can already see that these first matches, we’re in a lot of them, and I think that has a lot to do with last week.”
Wiesbaden visits Hohenfels on Saturday, while ISB travels to Stuttgart in a matchup of the top two programs in Europe in recent years.