Taylor University has not had a tennis team since the 2019-2020 academic year. Coincidentally, this also means the Trojans have been without a win for over five years.
New head coach Josh Grubbs was hired over a year ago to begin preparing for the upcoming season.
“It’s been a year-long process,” Grubbs said. “I mean, I had to recruit a whole new team for both the men’s and women's side, so that was, you know, took up a majority of my time.”
Collegiate tennis scoring is a combination of both doubles and singles play. There are three doubles teams, and as soon as a team wins two of three doubles matches, they earn one point. Schools then move to a series of six singles matches, where each match is worth a single point. Four total points guarantee a victory.
Grubbs said during training camp the Taylor players played “challenge matches” against each other in order to set the roster. Whoever won a challenge match gets to play out of a higher spot on the roster.
Freshman Jillian Darby is ranked first in singles and second in doubles on the women’s team. She said she felt honored to be a part of the team. Darby comes from a family of tennis players. Her mother also played as the number one in singles for the women’s tennis team at Taylor.
Darby’s road to the top has been a journey. Her parents met while playing tennis and eventually both coached at Taylor. Growing up, Darby fell in love with the sport, whether it was playing with her siblings, at local events or in YMCA tournaments. Although she underwent shoulder surgery in 2024, she feels it has mostly healed.
Darby won each of her games, first with freshman teammate Anna Stone in doubles and before claiming a win in singles, helping the Trojans to a 6-1 victory against Indiana East and contributing two of Taylor’s six points.
The men’s team also won its first match against IU East 4-3 in a close series. They started out from behind after losing their doubles match, but bounced back thanks to strong singles performances.
Grubbs said the first match sets an expectation for the rest of the year. There were some first-match jitters throughout the team, but he thought the players did well on the court.
“The thing that we talk about the most in practice is just competing,” Grubbs said.”We want to leave every single match with the other team’s coach, just saying, ‘Wow, Taylor, like really competed hard.’”
The players did indeed compete as both teams celebrated a 1-0 start to the season.
“We were all kind of going into it with some nerves,” Darby said. “Which is, you know, that makes sense. But the match was tough, definitely tough, especially in singles, but just rallying around each other, cheering for each other really made it a lot better that we did win.”
Although the Trojans focus on playing hard, the team continues to keep its focus on playing in a way that honors Jesus through their match.
“Of course we want to win but that's not our main goal. Our main goal is to glorify God through what we do because it is a gift,” Darby said.
