Illini women’s tennis returns home this Saturday to take on fellow Big Ten member Northwestern after being on the road last weekend. The match will kick off at 4 p.m. as a part of a doubleheader with the men’s team, who will be opposite No. 18 Michigan State at noon before taking on Michigan on Sunday.
After being upset by No. 62 Iowa, who was No. 75 last weekend, and beating an unranked Nebraska squad, Illinois dropped from No. 34 to No. 41 in the ITA team rankings. In comparison, the Northwestern Wildcats are No. 37 in this week’s rankings after starting 4-0 in the Big Ten.
The Wildcats had the opposite schedule as the Illini last weekend, traveling to Nebraska on Friday and Iowa on Sunday. Despite pulling out both matches, Nebraska gave Northwestern a bit more trouble with a 4-3 before it cruised by Iowa, 4-1.
There is even more similarity in Illinois and Northwestern’s conference schedule so far, as two weekends ago, they both played No. 49 Maryland and No. 73 Rutgers at home. The results were not kind to the visiting squad in any of the four matches, as Illinois and Northwestern both went 2-0 in that stretch.
This weekend, Illinois will look to have its top doubles tandem of freshman Alice Xu and junior Megan Heuser bounce back after losing two consecutive matches at Iowa and Nebraska. The back-to-back losses were out of the ordinary for the No. 47 duo, as they have had a strong season together and currently have a record of 7-3.
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However, they will face a tough challenge. Northwestern’s top doubles team of senior Justine Leong and graduate student Christina Hand is No. 50, only a few spots behind Xu and Heuser.
Head coach Evan Clark acknowledged the difficulties of playing in the top position and had some minor observations that he wanted the duo to clean up before taking on the Wildcats.
“I think they’ve done well, but it’s tough playing doubles,” Clark said. “You’re always going to get a pretty good team there. I just think they could clean up the free points a little bit and just be a little bit more aggressive.”
However, he doubled down on his confidence in Xu and Heuser and their abilities.
“They’ll be fine,” Clark said. “They’ve got a good demeanor about them, and they’ll bounce back.”
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