Another disappointing weekend for the Illini saw them drop to 1-3 on the season following a 4-2 defeat to the Wolfpack of North Carolina State on Saturday and a 4-1 loss at the hands of the No. 18 Sooners of Oklahoma on Sunday at the ITA Kickoff Weekend in Oxford, Mississippi.

Although the Illini lost both of their matches, the consensus within the team is that these should have been winnable matches. Head coach Brad Dancer described the team’s weekend performance as “really poor,” lacking in many areas that you can’t be lacking in if you want to take down good opposition.

“The number one thing we are lacking is focus,” Dancer said. “We are lacking movement, we’re lacking toughness, we’re lacking everything right now. All the important criteria of playing tennis.”

Starting off the weekend of matches for the Illini was their match against the Wolfpack. The Illini started off strong, securing the doubles point off the back of wins on Courts 1 and 2. Redshirt junior Lucas Horve and sophomore Hunter Heck defeated their opponents on Court 1, 6-1, and were followed in quick succession by redshirt junior Siphosothando Montsi and graduate student Olivier Stuart, who clinched the doubles point with a 6-2 win over their opponents on Court 2. 

This point put the Illini in a good position to secure victory in singles, but they were soon down 2-1 after two quick defeats on Courts 4 and 5. On Court 2, Stuart secured a victory over No. 36 Martins Rocens, 6-4, 6-4, and evened the score at 2-2. The Wolfpack were able to push on and achieve two more singles wins on Courts 1 and 3 soon after Stuart’s win, with the win on Court 1 clinching a 4-2 victory for the Wolfpack.

This loss meant that the Illini were knocked out of the ITA Kickoff Weekend, but they were given a consolation match on Sunday morning against the No. 18 Sooners, a match in which they would look to get a big top-25 victory to end the weekend on a high.

The match against the Sooners did not start out as promising as Saturday’s match against the Wolfpack. The Sooners cruised to the doubles point with dominant wins on Courts 2 and 3 and carried this momentum into singles play, where only one Illini would achieve a victory. On Court 1, Stuart took care of his opponent swiftly, winning, 6-2, 6-1, against No. 31 Mason Beiler. Wins for the Sooners on Courts 4, 5 and 6 would overwrite Stuart’s high-profile singles win, as Oklahoma would win Sunday’s consolation match, 4-1.

With not many positive takeaways from this weekend for the Illini, Dancer’s focus this week will primarily be on helping the team prepare better for their next weekend of matches.

“Clearly any time your team performs the way that we’ve performed, the coaches have not done a good job preparing the team,” Dancer said. “We have to prepare the team in a way that has us ready to go.”

Next weekend will see the Illini have three great opportunities to get back to winning ways, as the team will welcome Illinois State and Duke to Atkins on Friday and No. 17 North Carolina on Saturday.

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