Northwestern’s women’s tennis team is rolling. Coming off its ninth straight Big Ten title in April and early season successes at the Cal Invitational at Berkeley, Calif., and the Wildcat Invitational in Evanston, the women’s team is playing with a hot hand as it enters the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s Midwest Regionals in Ann Arbor, Mich., starting today.
Though this is an individual tournament and has no bearing on the team’s standing in the country or in the Big Ten, it remains an important benchmark for assessing the team’s future and could have added significance as a number of the Wildcats’ conference rivals, such as Michigan and Iowa, will also be sending players to this weekend’s tournament.
Coach Claire Pollard downplayed the rivalries.
“Right now our focus is on improving every player every day, ” she said. “Good things will happen.”
That could be sooner rather than later for a team that welcomes back seven members of last year’s squad and adds a freshman whom Pollard believes is “a star in the making.” Powered by junior Georgia Rose and sophomore Samantha Murray, the two highest-ranked singles players in the Midwest bracket, and two doubles teams ranked in the top 50 in the country, NU looks ready to make some noise this weekend.
“We are definitely entering the tournament with a lot of confidence,” said Rose, who struggled with injury earlier in the season, but is now healthy and could be poised to reach her first national indoor championship this season.
The Cats have traditionally done very well at the regionals, winning the singles and doubles brackets in both 2004 and 2005 and reaching the doubles finals last fall. But Pollard maintains that she doesn’t “want [the team] only to be about winning here [at Ann Arbor],” though she admits “it gets kind of hard the better you get.”
The men’s team enters its Midwest regionals in Minneapolis, Minn., with lower expectations. Coming off a 4-6 conference record last year, the loss of three seniors to graduation and the resignation of coach Paul Torricelli, this year has the makings of a rebuilding season for the men’s program.
But new coach Arvid Swan said he has liked what he’s seen from his squad so far this fall.
“I am pleased with the improvements we are making on and off the court,” he said. “The team wants to get better and push themselves to become an elite program.”
Last weekend’s Wildcat Invitational did show some encouraging signs, with both sophomore Alex Sanborn and freshman David Seyferth collecting multiple singles victories and the three doubles teams putting in a solid second-day performance
But NU has struggled at the Midwest Regionals in recent years and send no highly ranked players in either singles or doubles. Furthermore, they compete in one of the tougher conferences in the country and will have to face national powerhouses Illinois and Ohio State which include three of the top 10 singles players in the country.
“We have a young team,” Swan said. “Each tournament we play is an opportunity for growth in terms of learning how to compete.”
With the Big Ten singles championships less than a month away, the Cats will have to grow up quickly if they wish to contend in the conference this season.
“If we do the little things every day to ensure great practices and conditioning workouts and compete really hard in these fall events, we will be successful on the court as a team when the dual match season begins,” Swan said.
One thing is for certain. NU tennis is back in full swing.
Reach James Graham at [email protected].
