The Minnesota women’s tennis team finished an impressive first season under Head Coach Lois Arterberry. After a 5-17 overall and 0-11 conference record in 2023, the Gophers improved to 11-13 overall, 4-8 in the Big Ten, and ninth seed in the conference tournament, reaching the second round last month.
In a released statement, Arterberry said, “I’m really excited to build on the overall progress we made this season. We want to lay a foundation that can foster a championship team one day, and we will continue to work for that.”
Arterberry spoke to the MSR a few days after her first season at Minnesota concluded. “I’m actually happy with the way that we competed this year,” said the coach. “We definitely exceeded my expectations.”
The Gophers knocked off two ITA nationally ranked teams this season—No. 48 Purdue and No. 62 Iowa. During the week of March 12, Minnesota had a national ranking of 72 and the program’s first Big Ten Player of the Week since 2020 (sophomore Aiva Schmitz).
Her players battled all year long, including the April 24 match against Purdue that came down to “who wins that doubles points, and we really, really fought for that,” recalled Arterberry. “We both [head coaches] knew that.”
“The players fought all the way to the end, and it was tough. Those student-athletes really believed in something beyond themselves.”
At the beginning of her first season Arterberry stressed the importance of establishing a lasting culture for the program and the players. “I think everywhere that I’ve been as a head coach, it was always about the culture piece first, and I stayed true to myself with that.
“As a coach, you want to recruit and bring in the best talent, but we also have to bring in good people… I felt like I stayed true to that even at Minnesota.”
Arterberry also expressed her gratitude to the Gopher community, including the administration: “I acknowledge the support that we’ve gotten this year from our administrators, from our athletic director, then the community. It’s been amazing. We were able to just fill the seats.
“Our hope is to just continue to build that up and to continue to grow. I definitely want to give a shout-out and say thank you to everyone that’s been supporting tennis,” she added.
The transfer portal and NIL isn’t foreign to college tennis—it’s the here and now in college sport across the board. “It’s a little bit different, especially when you’re recruiting international student athletes,” explained Arterberry on NIL.
“Technically, they are not allowed to work in the U.S. It’s just a little bit more tricky when it comes to that compared to all of the other sports.
“Personally, I don’t see it as having a huge effect on [how] I’m able to recruit kids or get players,” she pointed out.
But the transfer portal is another matter altogether.
“The hardest part is just making sure that you’re able to retain those players,” said Arterberry. “You can give an athlete everything that you think that you’re able to give them and they still find the reason to try something different or to go someplace else.”
Finally, the Big 10 becomes an 18-school league beginning this fall. “Two of them right now [UCLA and USC] are top 10, and the other one [Washington] is top 20. And Oregon is maybe top 60,” said Arterberry.
“Some of my goals for next year is to at least be top 75. I think that we will have the potential to do so.”
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