The Illini’s weekend travels resulted in the squad’s fourth and fifth defeats of the season following a 4-1 loss to the No. 20 Michigan Wolverines on Friday and a 4-0 sweep by the Notre Dame Fighting Irish on Saturday.

These two crushing defeats moved the previously top-25-ranked Illini to 1-5 on the season. With no wins in nearly a month for this Illinois team, there are not many positives to take away from this weekend, let alone the entire start to the spring season.

“I don’t think when you play for Illinois tennis you are taking away positives from the way we have started this season,” head coach Brad Dancer said. “We haven’t been competitive. If we were in position to win matches and couldn’t close them out or something like that, that would be one thing. We aren’t even putting ourselves in positions to win.”

The Illini started off their weekend with a match against the Wolverines. The Illini’s start was promising, winning the doubles point in a strong showing. Graduate student Alex Brown and freshman Gabrielius Guzauskas started off the Illini’s doubles success with a win on Court 2, 6-4. Immediately after, graduate student Olivier Stuart and senior Nic Meister won their match, 6-4, on Court 3, clinching the doubles point for the Illini. 

The singles matches, on the other hand, did not go in the Illini’s favor. Michigan swept Illinois in singles, winning four matches in quick succession. With nothing to show for their travels to Ann Arbor, the Illini would lose the match, 4-1, marking the Illini’s fourth loss against ranked opposition this season.

Still searching for their second win of the season, the Illini immediately traveled to South Bend for their match against the Fighting Irish, and they were immediately met with tough matches. A loss on Court 1 in doubles set the Illini back early, but a win on Court 2 from Brown and Guzauskas would even the two teams up at 1-1. Soon after, the Irish would take the doubles point with a win on Court 3. In singles, the Irish picked up where they left off in doubles and swept the Illini. Three quick singles wins for the Fighting Irish and the Illini were left with nothing to take home from the weekend.

In reflecting on the weekend, Dancer mentioned the importance of patterns in tennis. Putting an opponent in a pattern is crucial for winning matches at the highest level of tennis, and it is no different in college.

“We choose to come out of patterns,” Dancer said. “I don’t know why or for what reason. When you have a pattern that works, you run that pattern. You have to run that pattern over and over. It’s like if in basketball we stopped going to Kofi. You just don’t do that.”

Now sitting at 1-5 on the season and with conference play just weeks away, this Illinois roster will look to achieve its first win in nearly a month in Saturday’s match against Duke and in Sunday’s match against No. 23 North Carolina. 

@DrewFriberg9

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