Jason Marshall, Georgia State’s women’s tennis head coach, continuously strives for greatness within his team. Marshall works day in and out to ensure the team does their best, whether it’s personal matches or tournaments.
Marshall has been the women’s tennis coach since fall 2014. In his time at Georgia State, he has secured good antics, such as hard work and dedication, within his team to ensure their success here at Georgia State and internationally.
The team’s practices are time consuming in order to secure wins and great success.
“We as a team practice about six hours a day, three to four times a week. It is tough, but the ladies get it done because they are passionate about what they do,” Marshall said.
The team’s records are both individual and also as a team.
“The fall semester is done on individual results, and the spring semester is when we do a team format which will have our team records,” Marshall said.
Marshall focuses hard on the team’s strengths and weaknesses in order to push the team where he knows they should be in order to be successful.
“Our strengths are that we are a very healthy team at the moment with no injuries. We have a strong level to be a top ranked team in the nation. At the same time, our weaknesses are that we still need to continue getting in better condition. Some girls need to get more confident in themselves at closing out matches. Getting better at crossing and poaching middle balls at the net in matches,” Marshall said.
The team’s long practices take place at multiple locations.
They mix up their practices at the Sharon Lester Tennis Center at Piedmont Park and go to the Dwell Atlanta Luxury Apartments when they are practicing in smaller groups.
Like every team, the women’s tennis team has strategies when entering tournaments. Personal matches boost individual confidence in each of their performances.
“Typically, we go into tournaments making sure we have done a lot of point play for the week, with singles and doubles. We tend to do less fitness and more drilling if we don’t have a tournament coming up,” Marshall said.
The team is full of eight talented girls that shine in their own light, bringing great quality to the team.
“All of our girls are international. Many of them have rankings in their country and lots of them have international world rankings,” Marshall said.
Marshall sets high goals for his team at the beginning of each individual and team season.
“The most important thing for us is making sure we have high energy as a team and we compete well. We know that if we bring this, we can beat many great teams. Our goal is to be ranked top 25 in the nation each year,” Marshall said.
“We also have goals of winning the Sun Belt Conference title as well. It is also a goal that many of the girls on our team will obtain individual singles and doubles national rankings that will help them get selected for the NCAA Tournament at the end of the season,” Marshall added.
As the individual fall season is coming to an end, their spring season is quickly approaching.
“Our first match opens up January 12-14 at SMU in Dallas, TX,” Marshall said.
Afterwards, the team will travel to Auburn to face off with the Tigers, as well as Oklahoma and Louisiana-Monroe. The Panthers will have a 23-match season that starts Feb. 4, 2018. Nine of the 23 matches will be hosted at Georgia State.
On Oct. 28, Georgia State made a statement about their good sportsmanship at the Piedmont Invitational.
The Piedmont Invitational was the team’s first and only hosted event of their fall season. Georgia State took on Air Force, Chattanooga and Purdue as part of the invitational.
At the Piedmont Invitational, the Panthers finished with a 15-5 record in single plays. Lara Vovk, Damira Muminovic and Elizabeth Danailova were the Georgia State student-athletes who shined the win. Together, the three girls put a score of 9-0 in singles play.
The tournament, which was supposed to happen the weekend of Nov. 10-12, was the Bulldog Invitational in Athens, Georgia. The event was cancelled by participating schools after Pacific University dropped out. Other factors have yet to be stated. This would have been the final event for the team this fall.
Alongside head coach Josh Marshall is assistant coach Alex Leatu, who served as head coach at the University of New Haven.
Last season’s stats:
- First match as a team is in Dallas, TX from Jan. 12-14th
- Panthers overall record was 13-9 last season
- Arina Taluyenko had the highest single record, with 15-4
- The best record in doubles belonged to Tarani Kamoe/Arina Taluyenko, with 12-7
