After a preseason full of mixed results and consistently positive attitudes from the entire team, Illinois women’s tennis is more than ready to get the 2024 regular season underway this month. Head coach Evan Clark, now in his eighth season, is excited about the culture and environment his players have created.
“We’ve created a culture where I feel like kids are really comfortable,” Clark said. “First of all, I think that’s kind of a testament to our players. They create a great, great atmosphere and they just love being here.”
With the departure of Emily Casati and Ashley Yeah after their senior seasons, Clark has had to fill out his roster with new faces. Freshmen Alice Xu and Rosie Seccia were both added to the program along with sophomore McKenna Schaefbauer, who joined the Illini via the transfer portal and became the first transfer addition in program history.
“We’ve always gotten phone calls; in May with some pretty good players looking to come to Illinois, we didn’t have scholarships available,” Clark said. “But we kind of changed our philosophy a little bit on that. And that was the first year we did it. We had a scholarship open, she was in the portal and the rest is history. It worked out very well for us, in my opinion.”
Despite being relatively new to the team, Schaefbauer has already made a strong impression during preseason tennis in the fall. The sophomore transfer is the only Illini to have made it past the first round of singles in the ITF/USTA 15K professional tournament in Champaign and knocked out the No. 2 team in the tournament’s doubles draw. Schaefbauer’s impressive preseason showing indicates that she will be one to watch on either the singles or doubles court this season.
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The team’s season began on Jan. 14 at the Atkins Tennis Center with Braggin’ Rights up for grabs against Missouri. Next, the Illini will travel to Durham, North Carolina, and Norman, Oklahoma, in back-to-back weeks, leading up to the ITA national indoor championships.
Starting on Feb. 10, the Illini have a four-match homestand taking on Cincinnati, Brown, Ole Miss and Marshall. The following week, the team will head south for the Blue Gray Tennis Classic before returning home to take on Washington in their final nonconference matchup of the season.
Following a two-week break, the Illini will kick off the Big Ten Conference season at home against Maryland on March 15. They will take on 10 more teams, split between home matches and other Big Ten campuses, culminating in a full conference affair from April 24-28 at the Big Ten tournament in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
To finish off the season, the NCAA regional championships will take place at the beginning of May, and some Illini may qualify for the national championships at the end of the month. Last year, the No. 17 ranked duo of senior Kate Duong and junior Megan Heuser won two matches at nationals before falling in the elite eight to the No. 10 ranked team from Virginia. The All-American tandem was only the fifth pairing in Illinois history to receive a bid to the NCAA doubles championships and the first since 2013.
Despite fluctuating fall performances during the preseason, Duong and Heuser are still the team in the spotlight for the Illini after their 26-6 season last year and numerous accolades. Look for them to string together some momentum and follow up last year’s success with another strong season with another trip to the NCAA doubles championships potentially on the horizon.
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