Western Kentucky’s women’s tennis team opens its spring season fresh off the winningest three-year stretch in program history with 47 match victories in that span.

Why not make it a four-year stretch?

The Lady Toppers return four players off last season’s 14-11 squad, which tied for the most wins in a single season in program history. That still left four spots to fill on the roster for this season’s team, and WKU coach Greg Davis bolstered his returning group with four transfers who all boast collegiate playing experience.

“When you’ve got four seniors, I think you’ve got to go the experience route,” Davis said. “In other words, I didn’t want to bring in two, three freshmen when I’ve got four seniors who’ve been here a long time and are experienced. I really didn’t want to bring in two or three young 18-year-old freshmen and it be more of a developmental team.

“In other words, the future’s now. And with this being the last year with these four, we wanted to bring in experienced players to give ourselves the best shot possible to have a successful season.”

WKU opens the season Thursday at home against Eastern Kentucky at the Warren County Tennis Facility at Michael O. Buchanon Park. That 1 p.m. match offers the Lady Tops an opportunity at payback after the Colonels spoiled their season opener last year with a 4-3 decision in Richmond.

Then on Sunday, WKU faces a stern road test at Vanderbilt.

“I haven’t had this many players in one recruiting class in a long time,” Davis said. “Half the team’s new. Now they’re all transfers, they’re all experienced meaning they’ve gotten a chance to play a lot. So I’m really just trying to get a feel for this team right now. Obviously I’ll have a better understanding after this week with two matches, the Eastern Kentucky match Thursday and then Vanderbilt on Saturday. I think at the end of the year, we’ll see Vanderbilt as a top-10 team in the country.”

Davis does have a good feel for at least half the roster. Senior Rachel Hermanova enters the season ranked first in program history in career singles wins with 49, while fellow senior Sofia Blanco ranks third with 40 wins. Blanco is also second in program history in career doubles wins with 38, while senior Mariana Zegada ranks fifth with 32. Those three, plus fellow senior Sunskrithi Damera, are counted on to provide a good deal of stability and production for the team this year.

“All four of them were in the top six last year, so they’ve got experience,” Davis said. “Now at the same time, they’re playing positions where we’re asking more from them than we have in the past and putting them in positions where they’ve played a little bit but not the whole season. So we’re looking for maturity out of all four of them.”

“I’ve got somewhat of an idea, but I really don’t,” Davis said. “We’ve got a couple that are a little banged-up already, didn’t come in as ready as I wanted them to be.”

To supplement that group, Davis added Carolina Chiatti (Stephen F. Austin), Mia Miranda (Nevada), Emily Schut (Marshall) and Elizabeth Sobieski (Valparaiso).

“The main thing for me is I wanted four really good team players to come in, people who are going to get along with teammates and be good, supportive teammates,” Davis said. “Plus I wanted to see some experience. I was familiar with all of them that are coming in because I saw a lot of their records from last year, am familiar with the players they played against. I’m a big analytics guy as well, so I’ve got kind of an idea of the level of the players they played against and what their level was.”

Davis said the goal is to win at least 70% of WKU’s home matches this season and at least 50% on the road. The early part of the season will provide Davis a chance to evaluate his players in match situations, with the intention of getting each Lady Topper at least one singles and one doubles match during that time before the team begins to settle into a regular lineup about mid-March.

“We’ve got to have at least a couple of these new players step up,” Davis said. “What I mean by stepping up is being consistent performers, not what I would call Dow Jonesers – up and downers, unpredictable from match to match.”