Last weekend saw No. 39 Illinois women’s tennis make its 16th straight quarterfinals in the Big Ten tournament before falling to No. 33 Wisconsin. Just over a week later, the Illini are in Austin, Texas after being selected to the NCAA tournament for the second year in a row.
“We always talk about consistency in our program so it’s nice to go back-to-back,” head coach Evan Clark said. “We haven’t done that since 2018-19, so it’s a big accomplishment for our group. Especially with everything we’ve gone through this year with injuries and different things. I’m really proud of this group.”
Illinois is opposite No. 24 Georgia Tech in the first round, with No. 9 Texas and No. 42 Harvard feeding into the next round. The Illini faced the Yellow Jackets at the beginning of last season and fell 6-1. Under Clark, Illinois is 1-2 against Texas and 1-0 against Harvard.
Tournament-style competition is not foreign to the Illini, as they gained experience at the Blue Gray Tennis Classic and Big Ten tournament this season. With every match being a must-win from here on out, Clark said the extra time and underdog mentality will work in Illinois’ favor.
“We have a little bit more time,” Clark said. “We’re getting out there tomorrow (Wednesday) so we’ll get a couple days outside. To be honest I think everybody is a bit more free at the moment. We know we’ve been close this year.”
Get The Daily Illini in your inbox!
The Illini enter the NCAA tournament with no one ranked in singles, but two ranked doubles pairings. Junior Megan Heuser is a part of both duos so Illinois can only utilize one at a time, with Heuser and freshman Alice Xu sitting at No. 70 while Heuser and senior Kate Duong are No. 82.
In addition to Illinois having the luxury of two options for court one, junior Kasia Treiber and sophomore McKenna Schaefbauer have been unstoppable on court three. The unlikely duo is a scorching 10-2 on the year and 8-2 when playing on court three. Their 10 wins together are the most by any duo this season which is made even more impressive by their debut match not coming until mid-March.
Despite Schaefbauer transferring to Illinois ahead of this season, she and Treiber already had a bit of experience with one another due to growing up in the same region. Treiber credited this connection with helping build their chemistry as a brand-new doubles group.
“Us being together was kind of unconventional just because she was playing with V (Violeta Martinez),” Treiber said. “V ended up having to sit out for a few matches and I kind of just got put in there. I’ve known McKenna for a while just growing up in the midwest together … I think we had that natural chemistry just from knowing each other.”
Schaefbauer had a similar stance to Treiber and said having observed Treiber’s game for so long helped her acclimate to working as a team.
“We’ve just been around each other’s game style for a while,” Schaefbauer said. “I’ve watched her forever, so you kind of just get to know what the person likes to do. Now I feel like we’ve really learned to play off of each other’s strengths. We both bring a little bit different things to the table so we use that to our advantage.”
@blountco21
