Instead of postponing the men’s and women’s tennis meets against Chicago State Tuesday because of the weather conditions, Eastern decided to move the meet inside to Lantz Fieldhouse.

The meet could not be canceled without rescheduling, and because of an inability to find time for both teams to meet later in the season, the meet will take place as planned.

But this isn’t necessarily good news for the players.

“We had practice canceled (Monday) because we didn’t think we’d have the meet,” sophomore Brandon Blankenbaker said.

And with the confusion between whether the meet would stay as planned or be postponed, many of Eastern’s players did not practice while others found time on the indoor courts.

“It’s a horrible surface to play on,” Blankenbaker said. “But (today) is an advantage to us. The surface (indoors) is totally different than normal courts, and we’re going to know how the ball is going to bounce. It’s so much different.”

This may prove to be an advantage over a team ranked among the top five collegiate tennis teams, especially with the recent shortfalls on the men’s team.

“We hit a rough spot with C.J. (Weber), but we’ll try our hardest,” Blankenbaker said.

Weber, Eastern’s No. 1 singles player, was injured in Saturday’s home match against the University of Tennessee-Martin and will miss between one and two weeks of competition with an ankle injury.

The players have adjusted on the court, bumping up one spot in singles play while doubles pairs mix faces as well.

And while the men and women will compete indoors, it is still nothing unusual for the team.

“It’s been hard for us to practice with the way the weather has been,” Blankenbaker said. “We’re doing what we can. We haven’t been winning, but we’re getting better with every match.”

Like the men, the women have seen individual success, but still struggle with indoor playing time, which limits what the teams can do on the unusual surface of Lantz Fieldhouse.

“With the weather bad, we’ve had practice inside and you can’t do much,” freshman Sarah Freeman said. “It’s not great for the legs and the ball flow is different. It sets us back.”

Indoor practice still allows for serving and volley practice, but doubles pairs are somewhat limited to what they can do on the court.

“We’re still not 100 percent set on our matchups, and it would help to practice outside,” Freeman said. “You can’t work much on court strategy.”

Meanwhile, both teams will adjust to the weather and face Chicago State indoor today at 2 p.m. Despite the indoor conditions, Freeman believes competition is better than anything.

“It would help if we had competition with all the meets we have coming up,” Freeman said before the rescheduled meet. “It helps to get us in match-mode.”