In its lone preseason event, the women’s tennis team closed out the Mal Moore Invitational tournament with 23 wins after a weekend of competition against Florida State, No. 17 Georgia Tech and 
No. 18 Northwestern.

The event had each team competing against one team each day. A typical tournament has each team compete against each other at any time. Junior Natalia Maynetto said the different style is good preparation for the upcoming season.

“We only played on three courts instead of playing all at the same time,” she said. “We think that’s good because at indoor nationals that’s how it is.”

Coach Jenny Mainz said the experience will help the team in the long run.

“We could’ve played two teams that we get wins over and we’re 2-0 on the season,” she said. “But those aren’t the matches that push you and boost your confidence and test your guts on three all-points. [Sunday] was a tough day.”

At the end of Sunday, Alabama had seven doubles wins and 16 singles wins.

“Every match is tough and you’re not getting the team wins but the individual players can accumulate wins and get ranked wins, which we did,” Mainz said. “We got a couple of really great ranked wins. I just think our team, where we are right now, we’re going to benefit more from playing really good, tough matches.”

Although exhaustion set in on the last day of the tournament, Mainz said the team battled hard. Danielle Spielmann and Emily Zabor both won their singles match Sunday. Maya Jansen and Erin Routliffe won all three of their doubles matches. Jansen and Routliffe won the NCAA double’s team title last year.

“We played really aggressively across the board,” Mainz said. “Everybody’s playing with more authority, taking the ball earlier, taking time away from their opponents by stepping in and pressuring them a bit more.”

The team begins its official spring season this weekend hosting Syracuse, Princeton and Virginia Tech.