Illinois women’s tennis spent its last two weeks separated, with head coach Evan Clark taking a group to the Baylor-hosted H-E-B Invite and associate head coach Jacob Eddins traveling to North Carolina for the ITA All-American Championships. Clark’s group was originally only missing junior Megan Heuser, the lone Illini to qualify for the ITA singles draw, but Heuser was eventually joined by senior Kate Duong for the main doubles draw.
The action began in Texas on Sept. 29 and featured an even number of singles and doubles matches. The success, however, was not as even across the two forms of play. Sophomore Violeta Martinez and freshman Alice Xu were the lone Illini to win in singles compared to an impressive 6-2 team effort in doubles.
Despite this being Xu’s first-ever tournament at the collegiate level, she totaled two straight-set victories by the end of the weekend.
“In juniors, you get a warm-up round, and the competition starts out not as strong and then gets stronger as the draw goes along,” Xu said. “Here, everyone is playing D1 tennis, and everyone is obviously very good, so it was very nerve-wracking for it to be my first collegiate tournament. You want to start off strong, and I’m thankful that I was able to do that.”
Saturday featured a script-flipping day two of action down south. Compared to the previous day, Illinois dominated in singles and came up short in doubles. Missouri was Illinois’ opponent of the day in singles, and senior Mae Canete was the only Tiger who emerged victorious.
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Things did not fare as well for Heuser in the east, who was trying to work her way out of the pre-qualifying singles draw. Heuser fought and even pushed the first set to 12 games but was bested by an opponent from Georgia with 7-5 and 6-1 losses.
Moving on to Sunday, Illinois closed out its bid in the H-E-B Invite with a one-sided day in singles and a solid doubles outing. Sophomore transfer McKenna Schaefbauer worked with fifth-year Josie Frazier to take a commanding 6-3 victory against Tennessee, but it was Martinez’s third win that headlined the day. Much like Xu, this was Martinez’s first collegiate fall competition after only participating in last year’s spring season due to injury.
“I was definitely excited because it was my first fall,” Martinez said. “I worked very hard in the summer because, even though I started last year in spring, I still wasn’t feeling my best. Coming from an injury is hard, and I didn’t get a lot of the reps that I wanted to, so in summer, I just tried to train a lot to be healthy for the fall season.”
Things also looked brighter for Heuser, who pulled out a straight-set victory in her pre-qualifying consolation round.
Three days later, on Oct. 4, Illinois’ All-American duo was reunited for their run at the main doubles draw. Duong and Heuser were No. 8 in the tournament and faced an unseeded duo from Alabama, but they were immediately put in a tough spot after dropping the first set 6-4. The match drew even tighter in the following frame, where, after 12 games, neither side had gained any ground.
A tiebreaker game was necessary to determine whether or not a third set was on the way, and unfortunately, it never came. Illinois’ top duo played another match in the consolation bracket and got their opportunity at a three-set victory but ultimately fell 6-7, 6-3 and 1-0.
Rather than be overly critical of such an early tournament against the best of the best, Clark believes this weekend was as good an experience as any for his All-Americans.
“I think they are a little bit low on matches,” Clark said. “(Me) not being there, it’s really tough. I watched a little bit of the first set, but it’s early in the season. No one is really going to remember the results from here, so it’s good for them to get these matches under their belt. Everyone is good in the main draw of All-Americans, so it was just another great opportunity for them.”
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