Even the most well-oiled sports machines need a tune-up every once in a while.

That’s what both the NIU men’s and women’s tennis teams will look forward to this weekend in a pair of early-season invitational tournaments.

The men will travel to Des Moines for the Drake Invitational, while the women will go to Chicago for the UIC invitational.

Both teams will be led by new coaches who will be looking to get their teams going early.

Women’s head coach Ryun Ferrell takes his team into Chicago to face a field of in-state rivals, featuring Western Illinois, the University of Chicago and Chicago State. The women’s team also returns two strong leaders in senior Lilian Asuaje and junior Brooke Forsberg.

The NIU women have already seen action this fall at the Hotels at Grand Prairie Tennis Invitational hosted by Bradley University, where sophomore Martina Schnapp and junior Stephanie Okuma both recorded straight-set victories.

First-year men’s coach Pawel Gajdzik will lead NIU against a field of teams including Creighton, Northern Colorado, South Dakota State and the hometown Drake Bulldogs.

“For us, it’s just getting experience,” Gajdzik said. “For us it’s more of a check-up point to see where we are standing with our conditioning program and how tennis relates to that.”

Two of the top players returning for the Huskies will be Javier Bernabe and Jimmy Chu, who last year compiled singles records of 17-10 and 18-11, respectively. Coach Gajdzik is looking forward to watching all of his players play over the weekend.

“Everybody has the same chance,” Gajdzik said. “We kind of expect a little bit more of our upperclassmen, because they’ve been in this situation already and they know we have freshman coming in and it’s their first weekend of collegiate experience.”

Even though it is the men’s first action of the year, Gajdzik expects to see a lot of intensity in Des Moines this weekend.

“We just want to play tough,” Gajdzik said. “I want to see guys competing, and being in every match, every game. If we do that I believe we’re going to be able to win a lot of games and a lot of matches.”