After three back-to-back wins at home against Marshall, Brown and Northern Illinois, Northwestern hoped to continue its on-court dominance on the road in Fayetteville, Arkansas, with weekend matchups against Kansas and Arkansas.
The Wildcats (8-4, 0-0 Big Ten) split results this weekend. While coach Claire Pollard’s squad logged a 4-1 victory against the Jayhawks (2-6, 0-0 Big 12), the Razorbacks snapped (7-3, 0-0 SEC) the visitors’ four-win streak with a 4-2 defeat.
The team started its weekend with a comprehensive takedown of Kansas, with strong showings in both singles and doubles action.
Graduate student Britany Lau and senior Maria Shusharina started play with a commanding 6-1 triumph over their Jayhawk competitors.
Freshman Neena Feldman and junior Justine Leong faced a 6-4 doubles defeat on court one, but graduate student Christina Hand and junior Sydney Pratt displayed their grit through a tightly contested tiebreak to prevail 7-5.
Kansas’ sole point came from Hand’s loss to Kyoka Kubo, who remains undefeated this season in singles play.
After this equalizing match on court three, the ‘Cats rallied back with three straight wins, led by Feldman. She finished 6-0, 6-4, displaying the prowess that earned her a five-star recruiting ranking out of Oregon.
Meanwhile, on court four, Pratt persevered through a close first set to hold her opponent to just one game in the second, 7-5, 6-1. Closing out the day, junior Kiley Rabjohns solidified the visitors’ victory with a 6-4, 6-3 performance on court five.
Going into Sunday’s matchup, the ‘Cats aimed to recreate the success of the previous day.
However, the Razorbacks snatched an early lead as Hand and Pratt lost 6-3 on court two. Lau and Shusharina kept their squad in contention for the doubles point with a confident 6-2 performance. Though Feldman and Leong forced a tiebreak on court one, their opponents nabbed a 7-5 win — and the first team point of the day.
Arkansas doubled its lead to 2-0 as Carolina Gomez took down Leong with a 6-4, 6-2 scoreline. However, Hand displayed her experience as she gave NU its first point with a hard-fought 6-4, 7-5 victory on court three.
Rabjohns brought the score to a tie with a comeback in three sets, where she refused to drop a game in the decisive third to overcome the initial 6-3 deficit at, 6-3, 6-0 in games two and three.
The visitors forced their hosts into tense tiebreaks on courts two, four and six. But soon after, the score sheet once again favored the Razorbacks as Shusharina could not convert two grueling tiebreaks into wins, 7(7)-6(1), 7(7)-6.
Though Feldman’s match on court six entered a fourth set, the game was unfinished as Arkansas locked in its final point on court four, where Pratt dropped an evenly-matched fight at 7(7)-6(3), 7(7)-6(1).
Despite mixed results this weekend, NU will seek to secure a sixth consecutive home victory March 1. The ‘Cats kick off the month with a matchup against Memphis, with first serve scheduled for 4 p.m.
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