Mark Weaver says A&M women's tennis is 'off to a great start' in 2025

As their 2025 campaign gets underway, Mark Weaver's Aggies are already performing at a high level, coming off their 58th consecutive victory at home. Head coach of the reigning national champions, Mark Weaver joined TexAgs Live to discuss his squad's recent outing. 

Key notes from Mark Weaver interview

• They're off to a great start. It's definitely a very busy time right now. You go from a little bit of a break over the winter holidays to going about 200 miles an hour right now. We're off to a good start. The girls came in on January 3, and we flew out immediately to Hawaii and got some really good practices out there. We had a great ITA Kickoff Weekend. We are playing at a really high level. I feel good about it.
   
• We have pretty much everyone out other than Carson Branstine. We have everyone back, in a way our girls have taken it to another level. Mary Stoiana is our leader and arguably the best player in college tennis the last few years, so she's back. She started out in January playing in a few pro events in Florida. She's back with the team now and playing as well as ever.
   
• Nicole Khirin played great for us last year, and I honestly think she's playing at another level than she did last year. Mia Kupres has had an excellent college career to date, and Lucciana Perez is playing as well.
   
• Daria Smetannikov was actually pushed out of the lineup last year when Carson came back, but Daria is playing unbelievable tennis right now, the best of her career, so that's very exciting for Daria. Jeanette Mireles has been a mainstay for us, always rock solid, and then we have a new freshman Lexington Reed, who had a very good fall. She's played a lot of pro events on her own. She's our only true new addition, and she's already made an impact in both singles and doubles.
   
• It's kind of a wild one with the way tennis is set up, but a big part of our recruiting spiel is the pro tennis. We feel like we allow that as much as any team out there. Us three coaches are yanked around on the fall season, taking kids one place. Another coach is taking a kid another place, and maybe one is back home recruiting. Our coaching staff, James Wilson and Tommy Mylnikov, are doing a great job, and this is the model we've had in place for the last 10-15 years. Stoiana could have easily gone pro, but we worked it out so she could still work on pro tennis and get her rank up. Before you know it, her career is coming to an end here in a few months, but we allow her to work on her pro tennis while she's here.
   
• We're fortunate enough to win the national title last year and you're enjoying that for a few days, and then you are thinking about the future of the team. Lexington Reed, for example, is our lone freshman, so we're looking to get her opportunities to play, and she has had a lot of opportunities this season. It's all about building up for next season. We are going to lose Stoiana and Mireles next season, which will be a big loss. We are looking for the others to continue to step up, Some of our recruits are coming in. We are always looking to build for the future.
   
• I'm happy with where we are. It feels like each match we've played this season the competition has gotten tougher and tougher. Going into the TCU match, I wouldn't say we were necessarily worried, but going into it, I thought it would be a good indicator of where we were because TCU always gives us tough matches. I didn’t do my usual talk with the girls that TCU always plays us close. I skipped that one this year. We won rather decisively, 4-0, and they are a good team. They've got good players all across the board, and we took it to them well. That showed me where we are. We're going to keep striving to get to another level, but compared to last season when we were 5-5, I'd like to think we are actually ahead of where we were last season.
   
• We embrace playing at home. We've taken a real sense of pride in that. We are a competent team at home, the setting and the surroundings, and the crowds that come out. It's a tough place to play, and a lot of teams don't want to come to play us. We have a hard time with the scheduling. We just built a lot of confidence at home. Of course, we feel really good on the court wherever we are if we play our type of tennis, but there's something about playing at home that gives you an extra sense of confidence. I think we look at it as an advantage and not as a pressure-type thing. I think the crowd really, really helps us.
   
• I think that the Georgia match prepped us for the rematch in the national final. We took it really tough on the chin in Athens, Georgia. It was an indoor match with a raucous crowd. I have never experienced anything like that, and the girls really felt that. After you've been through something tough like that, that adversity, the next time you face a similar situation, you've done it. So it couldn't get any worse than that. Once you've realized you've been through it, it's like, 'We're good.” I think without that match, maybe we don't go to do what we did last year, and I hope as we are heading into these big matchups this year we can draw back on that yucky feeling that we felt. When you talk about experience, that's a perfect example of experience.
   
• We unfortunately lost to San DIego last year. Stoiana twisted her ankle the day before the match and got us off to a rocky start there. They have a really good team, so we've had this marked on our calendar for a while. We're excited to play them. I feel really good about it.
   
• It's a 1 p.m. match on Friday. We did that for the weather, so we hope the 12th Man can come out and take an extra lunch break and watch us play. It'll be an important match. Every match gets tougher. We'll play Sam Houston on Sunday at 1 p.m. We are looking to leave a few days afterward to head to the national indoors. They are doing it a bit differently this year. It's a two-host site where Northwestern and Illinois host. We are going to be in Illinois, so we'll leave on Tuesday and start on Friday.