Coming off of two very successful weekends in a row, Illinois women’s tennis will send four competitors to the Alabama Invite this weekend, while senior Ashley Yeah and junior Kate Duong head to Cary, N.C., to compete at the ITA All-American Championships. 

Illinois’ fall season has started off as good as anyone could have hoped for and while head coach Evan Clark is most certainly impressed with the results, he stresses how important it is for his group to continue to compete at their highest level.

“We’re really excited about how we’ve started, it should give a lot of confidence to our kids, Clark said. “But we encourage them not to settle and to not just be happy with these first couple of results because we’ve got a lot of the fall left.”

Yeah and Duong have been key to Illinois’ early success with both earning impressive records at the Wahoowa Invite and being two of the four Illini to split the singles championship at the UTR College Circuit.

The duo has been selected to compete in the pre-qualifying singles draw, where they will have the opportunity to claim spots in the qualifying singles draw and main singles draw. The two have also been selected as a third alternate for the Pre-Qualifying Doubles draw, where they would see a similar tournament structure provided they are needed.

The pair will be put to the test as in each round they face their toughest opponent of the season, but Duong is confident that her experience these past weekends will prove to be very valuable against more difficult competition.

“It’s probably one of the biggest tournaments that I am going to play in my collegiate career,” Duong said. “Being able to get six singles matches and around five doubles matches under my belt before playing in such a prestigious tournament is really beneficial for me because I have played so many matches and have learned what I need to work on and fix before I play this tournament.”

Yeah and Duong will be accompanied by Clark while they look to make noise at the ITA Championships, which kicks off competition this Saturday with the potential to conclude next Sunday.

Meanwhile, associate head coach German Dalmagro will be present with senior Emily Casati, sophomores Kida Ferrari and Kasia Treiber and freshman Violetta Martinez at Alabama’s Five-In-The-Fall competition this Friday through Sunday.

In a combination of singles and doubles matches, the group will face off against competitors from Alabama, UAB, South Alabama and Florida State providing valuable experience against non-Big Ten opponents for Illinois.

Experience like this will be very important for Illinois in the spring, as Illinois will likely not match up against any conference opponents in the NCAA Championships, making any chance to play against non-conference opponents that much more precious.

Illinois women’s tennis will compete at the Alabama-hosted Five-In-The-Fall event this Friday through Sunday, while Ashley Yeah and Kate Duong compete in the ITA All-American Championships starting this Saturday.

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