Women’s Tennis

After dropping three consecutive matches, Northwestern will look to end its losing streak as it returns home for bouts against Washington and Milwaukee on Saturday.

The Wildcats (3-3) got out of the gates quickly with three wins to begin the season, only to watch their hot start disappear. NU ran into a pair of tough opponents, losing close matches to No. 16 UCLA and No. 11 Texas, before faltering to then-unranked Oregon.

“We’ve been getting in a mindset of like, ‘We’re better than this,’” coach Claire Pollard said, “There’s no reason for these losses, really. Let’s go out and perform at the level that we know we’re capable of.”

The Cats will need to have a short memory this weekend, as they turn their focus to yet another ranked opponent — their fourth in seven matches.

No. 22 Washington (7-2) is riding a five-match winning streak coming into Saturday’s matchup. With two singles players ranking inside the top 40 nationally, the Huskies have been tough to beat recently, losing just five individual matches during their win streak.

“We’ve got to take care of our own court,” senior Alex Chatt said. “We can’t really think about what the result is going to be as a team.”

NU will be in for a different experience just five hours later in the day, however, when it hosts a winless Milwaukee team (0-7).

The Panthers will be seeking to win just their second doubles point of the year. Meanwhile, even with the Cats’ recent struggles, NU has yet to drop a doubles match on the season. Featuring the No. 1 and No. 12 doubles pairs in the country, Saturday afternoon’s match will be one of strength against weakness.

“We’ve seen this season, so far, that everyone has good players on the team,” senior Erin Larner said. “We’re not overlooking Milwaukee at all, (but) I think we’re more so focused on Washington.”

Even with the continued doubles success, the Cats have not been able to match that in singles.

Having lost two-thirds of its singles matches over its losing streak, NU will need to step up individually if it wants to get back to its winning ways.

“We’re not taking the doubles win for granted at all,” Larner said. “But we definitely need to get some wins in singles, because that counts just as much.”

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