Following its thrilling 5-1 victory over Northwestern last Saturday, No. 32 Illinois women’s tennis will host Minnesota at 3 p.m. on Friday and visit No. 30 Wisconsin at 11 a.m. on Sunday. The Illini are off to a 4-1 start in the Big Ten while the Golden Gophers are 3-2 and the Badgers are 5-0. Wisconsin’s undefeated start in conference play is only rivaled by No. 2 Michigan, who is 6-0 thus far.
This weekend will bridge the midway point of the conference schedule, as the Illini only have four more matches before the postseason after heading home from Madison.
Minnesota is coming off a split weekend with a 4-3 loss to Nebraska and a 4-1 win over Iowa. The Illini mirrored the Golden Gophers’ matchups two weeks ago but saw the opposite results, claiming a 4-1 win over the Cornhuskers and a 4-2 loss to the Hawkeyes.
The Badgers have been winning consistently all season long, supplementing their 5-0 record against Big Ten opponents with a 9-2 non-conference record. The Badgers’ .875 overall win percentage is the best in the Big Ten.
Despite what the 5-1 final score suggests, the Illini’s victory over Northwestern last weekend was a thrilling one. Three-set matches, tiebreakers and freshman Alice Xu’s first clincher were among the highlights of the Illini triumph.
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Xu’s straight-set win on court six was a nip-and-tuck battle and moved her to 6-0 in singles during the spring season. In the first set, Xu broke a 5-5 tie by winning two straight games before rallying from a 6-5 deficit to force a tiebreaker in the second set. Xu also trailed 6-5 in the tiebreaker but won three straight points to clinch the match for Illinois.
“Kudos to her,” said head coach Evan Clark. “It’s a tough situation, even in that (tie)breaker there, she was down a set point at the end. I’ve just been impressed with her. How she’s handled herself … I think she continues to get better and better.”
Seconds after Xu’s victory, sophomore McKenna Schaefbauer closed out her match on court two against No. 88 Justine Leong. The match typically would have ended after Xu’s clincher, but Schaefbauer’s winning point was in play at the time. Schaefbauer’s three-set comeback victory marked her first-ranked victory of the year.
“I’m happy for her,” Clark said. “She’s had a tough time getting over the hump in a bigger match. I love how she responded in the (tie)breaker. I just think she has better confidence, a better belief in her game and knows that she can figure it out.”
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