With Illinois clinching the fourth seed in the Big Ten tournament, the team faced Nebraska this Friday. For the past few weeks, the Illini have been racking up wins and gearing up for the postseason.
Illinois and Nebraska, ranked No. 4 and No. 5 in the Big Ten respectively, had a competitive match due to the proximity in seeding. Before the match, Illinois had a 12-1 upper hand in all-time wins against Nebraska, and the team’s only loss was in April 2022.
With such a rich history, doubles kicked off the tournament’s win-or-go-home stakes. As usual, Illinois doubles performed strongly, with redshirt senior Lucas Horve and graduate student Oliver Okonkwo setting the tone. Both players have taken leadership positions on the team as upperclassmen. They defeated Nebraska’s Nic Wiedenhorn and Anton Shepp (6-4).
Line two doubles finished up next and clinched the point for Illinois. Junior Mathis Debru and sophomore Kenta Miyoshi took the match to the seventh set and finished on top. They defeated Calvin Mueller and Lars Johann (7-5). Senior duo Hunter Heck and Alex Petrov did not have to finish their match as the point had already been clinched.
Onto singles, the Cornhuskers tied the match as No. 99 Miyoshi fell to Shepp (4-6, 2-6). However, Okonkwo struck back and put the Illini up by one as he took down Johann (6-4, 6-4). However, his victory in straight sets did not build enough momentum for Illinois tennis to take home the match.
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Nebraska took home three consecutive matches and handed Illinois the early exit in the Big Ten tournament. Redshirt freshman Tyler Bowers fell first, but not without a three-set fight. He lost the first set to Leo Linquet and then took the next. However, Linquet won the last set, and the match finished (4-6, 6-2, 4-6). Although he dropped the match, Bowers gained valuable postseason experience he will be able to utilize in upcoming years.
No. 42 Heck lost to No. 80 Mueller in three sets as well. Heck took the first set, but Mueller won the tiebreaker in the succeeding set. Mueller won the last set and gave Nebraska a 3-2 lead. Petrov finished up next and played two tiebreakers in his loss to Nebraska’s Shunya Maruyama. Unfortunately, his loss gave Nebraska the win on the day.
“Huge credit to Nebraska, I thought they played a great match,” head coach Brad Dancer said. “We put pressure on them at every position, and they responded. We fought hard but we didn’t manage certain moments as well as we could, and Nebraska just kept coming.”
Even though Illinois is out of the Big Ten tournament, they can still display a successful season in the NCAA tournament. If selected, their seeding will be released Monday at 5 p.m. on the NCAA website.
