Fine margins go Northwestern’s way… until the last hurdle
After 23 straight NCAA Tournament appearances under Head Coach Claire Pollard (not including the 2020 season, which was cut short due to COVID-19), Northwestern women’s tennis missed the Big Dance for the first time in Pollard’s tenure last year.
Pollard called the failure to qualify a “really big blow,” and the team was determined to right the ship heading into this campaign. That NU returned to the NCAA Tournament alone makes this season a success, but the fact it finished 19-8 and achieved its best Big Ten record (9-2) since 2018 makes it all the more impressive.
After starting the non-conference slate 4-1 with its only loss coming against No. 9 Texas A&M, Northwestern was scheduled for road trips on consecutive weekends that would provide a better idea of its level — it matched up against two top-25 opponents in No. 23 Georgia Tech and No. 22 Vanderbilt.
Though the ‘Cats lost both matches, each finished 4-3, demonstrating their ability to compete against high-caliber opponents. They went 5-1 the rest of non-conference play, including wins over No. 46 Kansas, No. 48 Memphis and a victory over Brown led by an iconic underarm-serving and forehand-slicing performance from an injured Christina Hand.
As conference play started, NU really hit its stride, propelled by phenomenal doubles play. Starting with their Big Ten opener against Rutgers, the ‘Cats won 12 of the 14 doubles points they played for the rest of the season, including a streak of eight straight doubles points.
Northwestern remarkably did not lose a single match at the No. 3 doubles slot, going 21-0. Most of that success can be attributed to the impeccable pairing of Britany Lau and Maria Shusharina, who went 18-1 together and 16-0 at No. 3. Neena Feldman and Sydney Pratt, who established themselves as the No. 2 pairing by the end of the season, finished 7-2. The experienced No. 1 pairing of graduate student Hand and senior Justine Leong posted an 8-8 record, but went on a hot streak in the middle of conference play where they won six straight matches before tailing off in the last three matches.
With the doubles point secured in almost every match, NU usually needed just three singles victories to clinch a win. Its most reliable source of singles success was its No. 1 player, Shusharina. She finished 17-8 on the year and 12-6 at the No. 1 spot, earning a unanimous selection to the All-Big Ten team. Given that recognition all four years of her college career, Shusharina became just the eighth player in program history to achieve that feat.
Beyond Shusharina, Northwestern also excelled at the No. 6 spot, which was largely split between first-year Feldman and graduate student Lau. Northwestern went 17-5 at No. 6, the best of any singles spot, with Lau going 9-4 and Feldman 5-2. Lau came on especially strong near the end of the season, winning five of her final six matches.
Hand and Pratt also put together impressive seasons. Hand was the No. 3 for the vast majority of the year, notching the second-most wins on the team with a 16-6 record. Pratt, a junior, started the year playing at No. 5 and No. 6 but worked her way up to No. 4 off the back of a 9-0 start to the season.
After winning six of her first eight matches at No. 4, Pollard moved her up another spot, but that proved a step too far. Pratt lost two of the three matches she played at No. 3 and was moved back down, never recovering her form from that blistering start to the season. She went 1-3 in completed matches in her return to No. 4, finishing the year at 15-7 in singles play.
Leong and junior Kiley Rabjohns, the starting No. 2 and No. 5 respectively, were the only two players on the team with singles records under .500. Leong went 11-12, frequently starting well but failing to hold on to leads, while Rabjohns was 6-12 despite consistently competing in extremely tight contests that often went unfinished.
The conference season was defined by three moments of unbelievably fine margins that all went Northwestern’s way. First, in their opening Big Ten road match, the ‘Cats found themselves in a tricky spot against Nebraska after a rare lost doubles point (featuring Lau and Shusharina’s lone loss on the season). The match ultimately came down to a third set between Rabjohns and UNL’s Ana Zamburek at No. 5.
With Zamburek serving at 4-5, 40-30, Rabjohns sent a backhand down the line that landed directly on the left sideline, but Zamburek called it out. The umpire disagreed; however, and not only awarded the point to Rabjohns but gave a point penalty to Zamburek for cheating, ending the match then and there.
Next, NU benefitted from the Big Ten’s controversial overturn of its crucial home match vs. No. 30 Wisconsin after the Badgers were found to have stacked their lineup to gain an advantage. Wisconsin initially won the match 4-3, but the result was changed after Northwestern filed a protest to the Big Ten Women’s Tennis Protest Committee regarding the placement of Maria Sholokhova at the No. 2 spot despite her being on an 11-match winning streak at No. 1.
Finally, the ‘Cats found themselves in another pickle against Nebraska, this time in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament. After NU lost the doubles point to the ‘Huskers again, the match was decided by a nail-biting third set tiebreak between Shusharina and Raphaëlle Lacasse at No. 1. Shusharina remarkably saved seven match points en route to a 12-10 victory in that tiebreak, allowing the team to escape into the semifinals.
In that semifinal, Northwestern lost 4-1 to No. 12 Ohio State, just as they had done a week prior. In both matches, NU won the doubles point but did not come close to competing in enough singles matches to have a chance of scoring an upset.
Despite that setback, the ‘Cats did enough in the regular season to comfortably earn themselves an NCAA Tournament bid. They traveled to Malibu, California to face an evenly-matched team in No. 26 Arizona State in the first round at the home of No. 6 Pepperdine.
In its biggest match of the season, Northwestern took a 3-0 lead in the most predictable way — it won the doubles point and followed that up with straight-set wins from Shusharina at No. 1 and Lau at No. 6. However, the middle of the singles lineup was a different story. Leong, Pratt and Rabjohns all lost break leads in the second set after dropping the first, allowing ASU to tie the match at 3-3. In the deciding match, Hand created three match points late in the third set but was unable to convert, ultimately losing in a tiebreak, 7-1.
After a season of finding a way to win the closest battles, it was only natural that Northwestern’s luck ran out at some point. The ‘Cats could leave Malibu with their heads held high, knowing that while they left opportunities on the table, they left nothing in the way of effort. Though uncertainty persists surrounding next season, with Lau, Hand, and potentially Shusharina and Leong leaving, Claire Pollard’s team is back on the right track.