Bouygues, newcomers provide competitive outlook for Nicholls women’s tennis team

Fifth-year seniors and newcomers highlight the squad of the 2024 Nicholls women’s tennis team.

 One veteran of the Nicholls program is senior Carla Bouygues.

“She’s had the most wins of anyone in the last three years in the program, and she’s coming back for her fifth year,” said Greg Harkins, who is in his eighth year as Nicholls tennis coach.

Fellow fifth-year senior Leah Grinberg is a newcomer to the Nicholls program, but not collegiate tennis.

“She was a conference champion at a Division II level who’s joined us this year,” Harkins said of Grinber, who is a transfer from Arkansas Tech.

Another newcomer is freshman Qianya Lui.

“I’m really interested to see how our freshmen, what kind of impact they make,” said Harkins. “It looks like probably heading up the lineup, we have a young lady from China, Qianya Liu. She was a Top 300 ITF player. She can hit the cover off the ball.”

Like Liu, Aada Inna is a freshman newcomer.

“We added another talented freshman, a young lady from Finland, who in her area was 21-and-under Finnish Championships her area this summer. She’s a crackerjack doubles player,” said Harkins.

Both freshmen, Harkins said, could provide help in doubles play.

“Doubles is so critical,” the Nicholls coach said. “That’s where we were so strong last year on the men’s side. I think with our experience and then matching up the players properly, we’re still working through that. If we can say competitive in doubles, we’ve got the depth in singles, so I’m not worried about that.

“We’ve got enough depth in the lineup that we’re going to be competitive in the conference and in the region.”

Factoring playing tennis in the South, Harkins said, brings physical and mental aspects to the game.

“We’re in subtropical climate, so we’re outdoors. The matches, the speed and the pace is a little slower, so conditioning plays a big part,” said Harkins. “You have to be physically ready to go longer and also mentally you have to prepare yourself for that, too. With a little bit more matches on the schedule, there’s less time to recover. That’s the physical aspect, just being in the hot, warmer weather and the slower pace of play for most of the matches. We don’t play indoors down here. We play outdoors 99 percent of the time.

“There’s not that much discrepancy between the teams, so you’re going 3-4 hours a match and then you turn around, you play another conference match 3-4 hours. There’s no time limit on a tennis match. That’s what I mean, that physicality, because the levels are so close and everybody’s good.”

As far as the Southland Conference is concerned, one program has stood above the rest on the women’s side.

“I’ll give them credit, Corpus Christi, they’ve been at the top of the ladder for almost two decades,” Harkins said. “They’ve just been unparalleled in their depth and skill set. Our goals are always to challenge them and do what we can to see if we can knock them off.”

Nicholls has managed to hold its own against a number of other teams in the conference, according to Harkins.

“We’ve been pretty competitive in-state against Southeastern. McNeese is solid,” said Harkins. “They’ve (schools in the SLC) done a great job there in bumping up the level. It’s always gritty.”