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Unlike many college sports, which feature dedicated off-seasons during the year, tennis has very few built-in breaks. As such, it can be tempting for collegiate players to either undertrain or overtrain when away from their coaches and teammates during the summer - both of which can set a student-athlete up for failure when the fall tournament season rolls around.

So how should players approach their time away from school? We posed the following question to our panel of coaches. We saw the first batch of answers earlier this month. Take a look at these thoughts from more coaches...

Q) How do you like to see your current players spend their summers? What is the best way to balance being prepared vs. being fresh and eager for the college season?

Efe Ustundag, head coach, Rice Men

I am a proponent of continuing a training and tournament routine similar to the spring season, especially in the early part of the summer. After all, tennis is a twelve-month sport, and most players are accustomed to year-round play. Many student-athletes improve during the spring dual match season, and it would be a shame to regress over the summer from lack of competition.

A student-athlete is likely more match ready, physically and mentally, than most other tournament players in early summer. He or she has competed for several straight months, dealing with adversity and physical strain. I feel it would be beneficial to put the skills they've developed during that time to the test right off the bat.

Ideally, time off to rest or do an internship would happen in the middle part of the summer. Once August hits, the training and competition should kick back up in order to be ready for the fall season. We would like to see student-athletes dedicated to coming back to school better tennis players than they were in April/May.

Mike Morgan, head coach, Middlebury Women

Ideally, from a tennis perspective, we would all love to have our players training all summer. Being that almost all college athletes (no matter the division) are not going pro, this isn't always possible. Setting one or two goals per summer for what each player can create is a great place to start. Whether that revolves around fitness or tennis is up to the individual - they are the ones putting in the hard yards.

In a prefect world, playing two tournaments a summer would be a great way to gauge one's goals. That does not always work out with life plans, but it is a great thing to test out your game and your improvements if you can, even if it is just to remember how to compete under pressure. As for finding the ideal combination of competition, conditioning and on-court practice, each player should sit down before summer starts to create an appropriate plan to fit their schedule and objectives.