Seniors have their moment and shine in women’s weekend sweep.
Friday: Comebacks propel women to 4-1 victory over Purdue
Returning to the Combe Tennis Center for the first time since its controversial match against Wisconsin which resulted in a Big Ten overturn, No. 37 Northwestern women’s tennis sought to preserve its unbeaten home record against No. 58 Purdue on Friday afternoon.
The ‘Cats got off to a perfect start in doubles play. The No. 1 team Christina Hand and Justine Leong, the 57th-ranked pairing in the country, continued their sublime form by winning 6-0 — the result meant they had dropped just one game in their previous three sets together.
“Christina and [Justine] are the ultimate combination of complementary players,” Northwestern coach Claire Pollard said. “It’s been a rocky, kind of up-and-down season for them, and now, I think we’ve turned the corner.”
Britany Lau and Maria Shusharina, the No. 2 pairing, clinched doubles for NU with a 6-3 win. This marked the fifth straight match where the ‘Cats claimed the doubles point.
From early on in the singles matches, Purdue showed it was capable of taking the contest the distance, as each side won three first sets. Northwestern lost two very close ones, with No. 5 Kiley Rabjohns losing in a tiebreak and No. 2 Leong going down 7-5 after leading 4-0.
No. 6 Lau was first to finish, dispatching her opponent 6-0, 6-4. Shusharina followed shortly after at No. 1, winning 6-3, 6-3 to give the ‘Cats a 3-0 lead on the day. At that point, however, no matches were remotely secure — three of NU’s four players were down a set, and the other was entering a third after No. 3 Sydney Pratt hastily split sets with Kennedy Gibbs.
Gibbs eventually cruised through the second and third sets en route to a 1-6, 6-0, 6-1 victory. No. 4 Hand and Rabjohns leveled their respective matches, meaning Northwestern needed just a set on either court to clinch victory. All the while, Leong’s opponent Csilla Fodor was methodically plugging away at another 4-0 deficit in the second set.
Ultimately, Hand crossed the finish line first with a 2-6, 7-5, 6-1 win that sealed the deal, though Rabjohns was on the verge of doing the same, leading 5-2 in the third. Leong also closed strongly, saving four match points to send the second set into a tiebreak before the match was halted.
“I think it’s huge,” said Pollard of Leong’s late heroics. “I also think [Rabjohns] needs to sort of think [she] would have won. Whatever is presented you have to spin and work in your favor.”
Saturday: Third set lapses doom men in 7-0 loss against Illinois
The No. 67 Northwestern men’s tennis team took to the road once again this past weekend to play a rival in Illinois. While the match was closer than the final score indicates, the Wildcats returned to Evanston with a loss to the No. 27 team in the country, dropping their record to 8-16 and 2-5 in Big Ten play.
Illinois got things started with a convincing performance in doubles to claim the first point of the match. At No. 3 doubles, Illinois’ pairing of Lucas Horve and Tyler Bowers quickly defeated Northwestern’s Max Bengtsson and Chad Miller, 6-1. Then, at No. 2 doubles, the duo of Mathis Debru and Kenta Miyoshi beat Greyson Casey and Presley Thieneman 6-4 to clinch the point for the Illini. This was the third straight match where the Wildcats failed to win the doubles point.
In the singles portion, the level was very high, with competitive matches on every court. It looked like Northwestern was in serious trouble at first, as Illinois proceeded to take four of the six first sets. It looked even worse after No. 1 Thieneman lost to Hunter Heck, 6-4, 6-4.
After Illinois took a 2-0 lead, momentum shifted when No. 3 Saiprakash Goli and No. 6 Casey took the second sets in their respective matches, bringing four of the six matches to a third and deciding set.
Unfortunately, that would be as close as the Wildcats would get to victory that afternoon.
One by one, the hopes started to dwindle for Northwestern. No. 4 Felix Nordby fell, with Bowers defeating him 3-6, 6-2, 6-1. It was one of four three-set losses the Wildcats took on a day that needed them all to go their way.
Next to go down was No. 2 Gleb Blekher. Alex Petrov beat him 7-5, 7-6(7) to settle the match in favor of Illinois.
The teams decided to play on to finish the remaining matches in progress, but the remaining Wildcats failed to put a point on the board. Bengtsson, Casey and Goli all dropped the third set of their matches.
With the loss, the men wrapped up the away portion of the schedule at just 2-10 for the year. They return to action this weekend with matches in friendlier confines at Combe Tennis Center against No. 70 Indiana and Purdue.
Sunday: Senior Day dominance results in 4-0 victory over Indiana for the women’s team
Emotions were running high as things got underway this past Sunday, when the women’s team returned to home action against Indiana.
There was the unknown of whether or not the match would be played indoors or outdoors, the pressure of maintaining a perfect home record and staying in the Big Ten regular season title race, but most notably, the taboo topic of senior day and its festivities on tap.
“We don’t talk about it a whole lot,” Pollard said. “Everyone knows [senior day] is coming. I think [Justine Leong] had a very hard time this morning. But it’s a balance because there’s still a lot of season left. This isn’t their very last match.”
That notion didn’t stop the players, especially the seniors, from playing like it.
The Wildcats claimed the doubles points for the sixth consecutive time with relative ease. The No. 1 duo of Hand and Leong quickly won 6-1 over Indiana’s pairing of Saby Nihalani and Li Hsin Lin, while the ‘Cats’ No. 2 pairing of Lau and Shusharina wrapped up the point with a 6-2 win over Sarah L’allier and Lene Mari Hovda.
The singles portion was equally uncontested, as Indiana, despite its best efforts, failed to keep things close. The Hoosiers would claim just one first set and only two sets total on the afternoon.
Just like in doubles, the seniors led the way to clinch things in singles. No. 1 Shusharina dispatched Nicole Teodosescu 6-1, 6-3 to bring the match to 2-0. No. 3 Hand wasn’t far behind, finishing her match with a 6-2, 6-2 victory over Hsin Lin. From there, it was just a matter of who would finish first, with No. 2 Leong and No. 4 Pratt holding slight edges in the second set.
Leong, the No. 116 player in the country, dug deep on her senior day to catapult the Wildcats to victory. She defeated her opponent, Elisabeth Dunac, in a second-set tiebreak to hold for a 6-1, 7-6(5) win.
Pratt’s match would go unfinished with her leading 6-3, 5-4.
Leong’s result was a big one for a variety of reasons. It not only clinched a team victory on senior day and wrapped up an undefeated home season but also allowed Pollard and her players to focus on higher goals to end the year.
“It’d be nice to get a signature road win so I think we’ll rest up and have a little bit of a celebration,” Pollard said. “And then we’re all about the Buckeyes.”
The ‘Cats will face No. 15 Ohio State on Friday, Apr. 19 in Columbus, Ohio at 3:30 p.m. CT.