Last weekend, Illinois women’s tennis sent five competitors to Vanderbilt’s annual June Stewart Invitational. On top of the hosts, Illinois faced competition from Missouri and Purdue throughout its three days in Nashville.

With senior Ashley Yeah and junior Kate Duong getting rest after a strong showing last weekend and freshman Violeta Martinez being out with injury, head coach Evan Clark believes this weekend provided the rest of the group valuable experience playing tougher opponents.

“Everyone was pushed up in the lineup which gave them tougher matches and created more opportunities,” Clark said. “Any experience like that is good for them … we always want to win but it can be good to lose a little bit to help us realize what we have to work on.”

Each day, Illinois was scheduled to play five singles matches and two doubles matches against opponents from the same university.

On the first day of competition, the Illini first saw Vanderbilt in doubles play then Missouri in singles play. The Commodores ended up getting the better of the Illini in both doubles matches, with one of the two being a tough 7-6 tiebreaker loss for senior Emily Casati and sophomore Kasia Treiber.

The afternoon didn’t fare much better for the Illini, as sophomore Kida Ferrari found herself with Illinois’ lone singles win of the day.

The second day switched up the schedule, putting singles competition against Vanderbilt in the morning and doubles play against Purdue in the afternoon. Despite valiant efforts from the Illini, the Commodores had just as much singles success as they had in doubles. The Illini dropped all five singles matches, including a tough three-set match spurred by sophomore Megan Heuser.

Illinois rebounded from the morning’s losses in good fashion, claiming both doubles matches against Purdue in exciting fashion, with senior Josie Frazier and Heuser’s match being decided by a tiebreaker that gave Illinois a 7-6 victory.

On the third and final day of competition, Illinois matched up against Purdue for singles and Missouri for doubles. The Illini put together their most productive singles stretch of the weekend against the Boilermakers, winning two of their four matches.

Treiber’s match was called off due to a head injury that rendered her unable to finish the match. Further details about Treiber’s injury have not been revealed, but Clark did not seem too worried when mentioning the injury.

The Illini did not manage to close out the weekend on a high note as they dropped both doubles matches to Missouri. Overall, the Illini won five of their 15 matches this weekend, with records of 3-11 in singles play and 2-4 in doubles play.

“We try to keep everything in perspective,” Clark said. “The biggest thing we gather when playing so much is that it’s very clear what they need to work on and you don’t get that when you aren’t playing this much. I think this year we are probably more prepared than ever (for ITA Midwest Regionals).”

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