Two weeks after taking down Notre Dame at home on Feb. 15, No. 45 Illinois faces No. 21 Baylor at the Atkins Tennis Center on Saturday. The Illini enter the match with a 3-5 record, while the Bears boast a 10-3 record.

After falling in five of their six matches, the Illini have turned things around as of late, and the team has picked up two straight wins, over Chicago State and Notre Dame. Baylor opened up their spring season with five straight wins, though the team is currently on a two-match winning streak after back-to-back 7-0 wins over Omaha and Grand Canyon.

Illinois has fallen down the ITA rankings after starting the season as the No. 13 team in the nation, now down to No. 45. Baylor opened their respective season as the 5th-ranked team in the nation, dropping as low as No. 26 before receiving the No. 21 this week.

The two teams faced off in Waco, Texas, last season on March 1, with the then-ranked No. 11 Bears taking down the then-ranked No. 14 Illini, 4-0. Baylor won all completed singles and doubles matches, though four matches went unfinished.

Head coach Brad Dancer said the team should forget about last year’s result and focus solely on this year’s team.

“It’s a different match, different circumstances — different everything,” Dancer said. “We both have different players too. I don’t think that match has anything to do with this year.”

Baylor comes into Urbana with three players ranked among the top 100 players in the country, including junior Sven Lah (No. 30), junior Matias Soto (No. 60) and senior Constantin Frantzen (No. 93). The Illini boast three players of their own in the top 100, including junior Alex Brown (No. 9, the highest singles ranking of his career), sophomore Siphosothando Montsi (No. 52) and senior Aleks Kovacevic (No. 85). Baylor duos Lah and Frantzen (No. 9) and Soto and redshirt senior Ryan Dickerson (No. 23) and Illinois pair Brown and redshirt junior Gui Gomes (No. 45) rank in the top 60 doubles teams in the nation entering the weekend.

This marks the final game for Illinois before Big Ten competition kicks off next weekend against Northwestern in Evanston on March 7 and Purdue in Urbana on March 8.

Senior Zeke Clark enters the weekend after winning both of his singles and doubles matches in his last two meets. Clark encourages his team to battle at every spot and forget about last year’s defeat at the hands of Baylor.

“Baylor is a good team. We knew that going in,” Clark said. “It’s going to be a battle at every spot, both in singles and doubles … We seem to be in the right mindsets and we just have to be ready for battle.”

Montsi praised his teammates, saying everyone needs to do their individual part.

“Everybody has to play their role,” Montsi said. “Everyone has to be doing what they’re supposed to do and doing their job, and it should be a good day for us.”

Illinois takes on Baylor at the Atkins Tennis Center at 6 p.m. on Saturday.

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