Women’s Tennis

Northwestern has one more chance to compete this fall before the start of regular season play in January.

After seeing mixed results through the individual season, the Wildcats will have a chance to finish the fall on a high note when they play against national competition at the Kramer Classic. The tournament, hosted by UCLA, begins on Thursday.

“Different people are in different places, but everyone needs more matches,” coach Claire Pollard said. “We’re still low in our match count, so we need some matches against people other than Wildcats.”

Because no NU players finished well enough at the ITA Midwest Regionals to qualify for the ITA Indoor National Championships, held on the same date as the Kramer Classic, the whole team will play on the West Coast.

Junior Maddie Lipp made the deepest singles run of anyone on the team at the Midwest Regional, but she was ousted in the quarterfinals. Lipp and her doubles partner, junior Alex Chatt, went into the tournament as the top seed, but were upset by a pairing from Michigan in the quarterfinals.

Fall tournaments are played individually or as doubles pairs and provide an opportunity for teams to prepare for the winter team season.

Pollard said different players have used the fall season to work on different aspects of their games. This weekend, Pollard will focus on the mental side of tennis with her team.

“We’ve been talking about about displaying better body language during our matches, and that’s something we’ll all probably be focusing on,” Pollard said.

Entering the season, NU returned eight players from last year with freshman Nina van Oost being the only newcomer. Five of six starters are set to return.

The Kramer Classic will present an opportunity for them and their teammates to create some positive momentum before the team takes a break to focus on school and prepare for the winter season.

“There’s so much time between this event and the start of the season, and it would be great to end the fall on a high note,” Pollard said.

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