It wasn’t supposed to be this easy.
The Northwestern women’s tennis team wasn’t supposed to sweep one of the better teams in the Big Ten without any difficulty.
But it did.
The No. 10 Wildcats won all three doubles matches and lost only one set in singles en route to a 7-0 victory over 28th-ranked Iowa.
“We were prepared for a battle,” Colleen Cheng said. “I think going in with that attitude helped us. We took care of them pretty easily.”
Cheng attributed the domination of Iowa to last week’s victory over Baylor.
“After we finished that match, we knew that we were still a good team without (injured player Shannon) Duffy,” she said. “We had never fully believed it. This week, we knew Iowa was pretty good, but not as good as Baylor.”
Coach Claire Pollard praised the team’s fast start in the match.
“After 20 minutes, I looked over and saw 5-0, 5-0, 5-0, 5-0,” she said. “When an opponent is ranked as high as we are, that really demoralizes the other team.
“We’re confident right now and playing extremely well. It stems from having a great practice every day. It makes the team feel so prepared. Gameday comes and they get to see the payback from all of their hard work.”
Iowa’s tough match against Illinois Saturday may have contributed to its loss to NU. The Hawkeyes were defeated by the Illini 5-2.
“They had a long, hard match the day before,” Pollard said. “We were fresh and that might be the reason (that we won). They just didn’t play as well as they could have, and we’re just a little better than they are.”
Cheng, Lia Jackson, Marine Piriou and Simona Petrutiu, NU’s top four singles players, won their first sets 6-0 and completed their matches in two sets.
Jessica Rush, at No. 5, also won her match in two sets, 6-2, 6-0.
At No. 6, Ruth Barnes managed a victory after losing her last three singles matches. She beat Jennifer Hodgeman 2-6, 6-4, 6-2. It was Barnes’ first victory of the season since filling in for Duffy.
“Ruth is getting better every match,” Pollard said. “(Her opponent) had an awkward game for Ruth to play against. She never gave Ruth a free point.”
The only close game of the match was at No. 1 doubles, where Cheng and Piriou battled Toni Neykova and Deni Alexandrova, eventually winning 8-7 (4).
“We were off to a 3-0 start when they started getting more fired up,” Cheng said. “Toni was the most vocal and took charge.
“They had a streak of four games in a row that made it really close.”
With added confidence after Sunday’s win, the Cats (15-4, 6-0 Big Ten) are starting to contemplate an undefeated Big Ten season.
“There is no doubt about it,” Cheng said. “We have only four Big Ten matches left and Ohio State should be our only competition.
“I don’t see any other team that’s going to beat us without our putting up a big fight.”
NU faces Ohio State in the last match of the season on April 22. Currently, the Buckeyes (15-5, 6-0) are also undefeated in the Big Ten.
But Pollard cautioned against looking ahead.
“We set as our goal winning the Big Ten regular season,” she said. “But we still need to take one step at a time. Anything is possible. If we stick to our system, concentrating on practice, it will become more of a reality.
“We’re trying to dominate and to make every team play their best tennis of the season to beat us.”
