A frustrating fall season came to a close this weekend at the Big Ten Singles Championship in Iowa City. After a two-month campaign that yielded both exciting wins and difficult losses, Northwestern will now have a break to regroup before dual matches begin in January.
Looking back on the past several weeks, coach Arvid Swan said that he doesn’t think the team’s results are indicative of how it will perform later in the year.
“I try not to really evaluate the fall season too much,” he said. “At this point, we’re just trying to get better.”
But at this weekend’s tournament, the Wildcats again fell victim to the inconsistency that has plagued them during their last several events.
On the singles court, freshmen Nikhil Jayashankar and Alberto Zanotti both struggled, each winning just one match in three rounds of play. Jayashankar’s losses were particularly disappointing, as he won the first set 7-5 but failed to hold on to the lead in both matches.
After a promising 6-2, 6-0 win in the first round, sophomore Raleigh Smith went on to drop his next two matches, including a tough 5-7, 7-5, 12-10 loss to Austin Brooks of Michigan State in the back draw.
Eric Spector and Tobias Reitz , both seniors, also struggled to make a statement on the singles court. Reitz failed to win a set in both of his matches on Saturday .
While Spector was able to win his first match handily over Billy Heuer of Purdue , he fell in the second round and went 1-1 in the back draw.
Senior Josh Graves produced the best results of the weekend, winning four straight matches in the back draw after a disappointing loss in the main draw .
In his opening contest, Graves leveled the match at one set apiece but couldn’t capitalize on his comeback, losing 6-4 in the deciding set to Mathieu Froment of Minnesota.
“I wasn’t really feeling great in terms of my tennis that day, ” Graves said. “I competed well but I was just missing a lot. I had chances, I came back from 4-0 in the third set but I came up a little short in the end.”
Graves was able to rebound though, winning all four of his matches in the back draw, with three of those victories coming in straight sets, and the other a more strenuous triumph, 2-6, 6-4, 11-9, over Iowa’s Will Vasos on Sunday .
Despite playing five singles matches in just two days, Graves said that he felt physically ready for every match.
“It’s a mentally tough challenge,” he said. “Some people didn’t deal with it, some people did.”
The doubles draw yielded slightly better results, with the Cats winning six of 10 maches overall.
Reitz and Zanotti teamed up to go 2-1 on the weekend before falling in the B-flight semifinals while the duo of Spector and Jayashankar encountered similar results, winning three of its four matches. Spector and Jayashankar’s best win came in the first round, in which the pairing won a very competitive match, 9-7, over Jack Larson and Austin Akers of Wisconsin.
For now, the team will hit the practice courts in preparation for its first dual match, as it takes on Ball State at home on January 15.
“We’ve lost a few close ones but I’m not too concerned,” Swan said. “It’s how you finish matches in the dual match season that’s really important.”
