By Conner Farrell —

Nicolas Rouanet is one of the three seniors that head the men’s tennis team this spring season.

Rouanet, a native of Gujan Mestres, France, came to Louisville in the 2016-17 season following a stint at the junior college level playing at ASA Miami. In 2016-17, Rouanet posted a record of 27-17 in singles, third-most wins on the team.

Rouanet, or “Nico” as his teammates and coaches call him, looks to build success through the spring season.

“We have to take them one match at a time, because it’s really early in the season,” Rouanet said. “We have a lot more ACC matches to look forward to, 20 or 25, we have to take them all one at a time and stay focused.”

With five matches under the team’s belt, the group and Rouanet look to bounce back after two tough defeats against ranked opponents Duke and TCU.

“As a team and for myself, it was tough to lose our matches, we had a tough weekend,” Rouanet said. “It’s not like that we lost to bad teams even though we had all the chances, it could have been a good opportunity, but we just didn’t make it.”

The team will have an opportunity to do so in the coming weeks with a stretch of four matches at their home courts of Bass Rudd Tennis Center.

“It’s definitely nice to be back home, we’ve won a lot of matches here and feel confident to bounce back,” Rouanet said.

Although Rouanet is a senior on the team, he prefers to take a different approach to leadership than others on the team.

“(Christopher Morin-Kougoucheff) is the captain and the voice of the team. I’m more talking outside of Kougou, making sure everyone is not going crazy and doing their work,” Rouanet said.

This especially evident with Rouanet’s play on the court, remaining cool in high-pressure situations.

“In my experience on the court, I am someone that is pretty calm so I’m trying to show that well on the court,” Rouanet said. “That is how I will lead the team, not by screaming at them, I’ll leave that up to Kougou.”

Nineteen matches still remain on the schedule, which means Rouanet and the team have a large portion of their matches to be played.

Even with all of those matches to look forward to, the goals for the team are still in sight and haven’t changed.

“Hopefully we will be making it to the NCAA’s again, make it to the Sweet Sixteen and that’s our goal,” Rouanet said.

You can follow Conner Farrell on Twitter @ConnerFarrell9. 

Photo by Dalton Ray / The Louisville Cardinal