Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

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Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

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Women’s Tennis: Doubles play costs Wildcats at ITA National Indoor Team Championship

The Wildcats traveled to Charlottesville, Va., on Friday looking to win a tournament they had already won two out of the last three years. No. 12 Northwestern began its run for a third Intercollegiate Tennis Association National Indoor Team Championship on a promising note by beating host Virginia but lost its next two matches against UCLA and Tennessee to finish the weekend with a 1-2 mark.

After the ninth-ranked Cavaliers dominated NU, 4-0, in the same tournament last season, the Cats repaid the favor with an impressive 4-2 victory. Coach Claire Pollard said it was one of her team’s best performances of the season.

“We played an exceptional match against Virginia,” she said. “We exerted so much emotion and so much energy. But I think what really stood out was our competitive toughness and our resilience.”

The Cats ceded the doubles point for the fourth consecutive match but responded well in singles. Unranked sophomore Veronica Corning won just her second match of the season in No. 4 singles against 85th-ranked Hana Tomljanovic. 86th-ranked junior Brittany Wowchuk pulled off an even bigger upset, knocking off 30th-ranked Lindsey Hardenbergh.

“Obviously there’s going to be a lot more pressure for singles after you lose the doubles point, because you need to make up for that by winning more matches,” Wowchuk said. “But at this point, I think we’ve kind of gotten used to it.”

A late finish Friday night left NU in a tough position. With fourth-ranked UCLA awaiting on Saturday, the Cats needed to bounce back quickly from Friday’s hard-fought victory.

Just one week earlier, the team faced a similar situation. NU beat eighth-ranked North Carolina Feb. 3 but faced a tough turnaround against third-ranked Duke the next day. The Blue Devils routed the Cats, 5-0. Saturday’s match against the Bruins played out in similar fashion.

“We exerted so much energy and so much emotion against Virginia,” Pollard said. “We put a lot out there Friday, and it was probably too much. We needed everything we had against UCLA, and we just didn’t have enough.”

The Cats yielded the doubles point to the Bruins, with losses at No. 2 and No. 3. At No. 1, junior Linda Abu Mushrefova and Corning battled hard against the Bruins’ 23rd-ranked pairing of Courtney Dolehide and Pamela Montez, but the match went unfinished because UCLA had already locked up the doubles point.

The Bruins were flawless in singles, winning four matches in straight sets. Abu Mushrefova said that it was tough playing against top-10 opponents on back-to-back days.

“It’s really tough to compete against opponents that are this good on a daily basis,” she said. “But I still think we fought hard given the circumstances. We didn’t win every match, but we played some quality points.”

On Sunday the Cats needed a strong performance against 17th-ranked Tennessee in order to avoid dropping their second consecutive match for the first time all season.

Once again, doubles play doomed NU. The Cats managed just one combined point in two matches, losing 8-1 at No. 2 and 8-0 at No. 3. They fought back in singles play, with junior Kate Turvy, Wowchuk, and sophomore Belinda Niu claiming victories at the No. 1, 2, and 3 spots, respectively.

But the Lady Volunteers won the other three singles matches and ultimately held on for a 4-3 win. Pollard said doubles play is becoming a major concern.

“We’re really starting to have some difficulty in doubles,” she said. “I can definitely see some more changes coming, especially before we get to the tough part of our schedule. We only have so many lives, and as the Wildcats we have nine lives. But we can’t afford to keep going down in doubles.”

The Cats now get two weeks off before hosting 13th-ranked Georgia Tech at Combe Tennis Center for high school night.

“Right now we’re just going to take a couple of days off,” Abu Mushrefova said. “Everyone knows what they need to work on, so I see us getting better as the season goes on.”

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Women’s Tennis: Doubles play costs Wildcats at ITA National Indoor Team Championship