The result of Northwestern’s prior defeat against Wisconsin was overturned into a victory, the Big Ten Conference announced Wednesday.
The April 5 tilt originally resulted in a 4-3 Badger victory, but the conference awarded the Wildcats a win after filing a lineup protest.
Entering the match, the Badgers’ Maria Sholokhova played all of her matches at the No. 1 slot and was on an 11-match win streak. Unexpectedly, she slid into the No. 2 position to face NU senior Justine Leong. The result was a 6-2, 6-1 victory for Sholokhova, but that singles point was flipped to the ’Cats.
Wisconsin’s failure to place its singles players in order of skill to manipulate match results is known as stacking. By inserting Sholokhova — the No. 78 ranked player in the country — at the No. 2 slot, the Big Ten Women’s Tennis Protest Committee found sufficient evidence of stacking.
The victory catapulted NU into a three-way tie for second place in the Big Ten with a record of 6-1 in conference play. The Badgers are also now 6-1.
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