Collegiate Times

It didn't take long for freshman Courtney Rauscher to hit her tennis stride on the collegiate level. Despite a nagging wrist injury, the first-year starter posted an 11-2 record in singles play during the fall tennis season.

Rauscher would earn top performer honors at the Princeton Invitational and advance to the singles finals at both the Colorado and Hokie Fall Invitational events.

Still, the Georgia-native wouldn't quite consider that her "A" game.

"Actually, in the fall with my left wrist I wasn't allowed to hit back hands, so I was slicing everything," Rauscher said. "I had surgery on it in July and they took out some piece of tissue, and I rested it and it didn't get better. ...

"So they had me rest it the entire fall just only hitting forehands and then sliced back hands," she said. "So the tournaments I did OK. (Coach) put me more on the bottom level so I didn't get killed; it was an interesting fall."

Unlike team play in the spring, the fall is exclusively for individual play. The tennis team competed at Colorado, Princeton, Old Dominion and its home court for the Hokie Fall Invitational.

Tech head coach Terry Ann Zawacki-Woods appreciates the phenom's tenacious effort throughout this stretch. Rauscher is tied for the team lead in overall match wins.

"Courtney's been doing a great job," Zawacki-Woods said. "She's been really solid for us at any position she's playing. As a freshman she's really found tremendous success."

The right-handed, 5-foot-4 Rauscher began playing tennis at the age of seven.

"My mom played some in high school," she said. "She took all of us kids and we played for fun, and then I started liking it. So we went to clubs and played there. I have had a coach since I was like 10."

Courtney was home schooled as a child and is the second oldest of seven children. In between learning math, science and English, she also practiced and participated in many tennis tournaments.

"It's all tournament related," Rauscher said. "You have different levels of state tournaments, which are not as strong. Then you go to southern, which is pretty strong. You have all the southern states together, and there are nationals, and those are really hard ones; you can go international."

"I did play international at one point," she said, "but most of us stay on the national level because there's so much competition anyway. You really have to pay a lot of money to go international."

In international play, one loss can be the end of the tournament for a player. In national tournaments it is more of a double-elimination process.

Tech started to recruit Rauscher the summer before her senior year of high school.

"It's called a recruiting summer," Rauscher said. "We have two big tournaments: one is a clay court tournament in July, and a lot of coaches from the big schools are there and you can meet with them one on one."

"There's another one, a hard court tournament in August which is another really big one, and they are there too to just see you play again," Rauscher said. "After that tournament you usually set up your recruiting trip and decide from there."

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