After Northwestern’s first match in the 2025 calendar year, an exhibition against Notre Dame, coach Claire Pollard said she didn’t “have a clue what to do in doubles.”
About three months later, the five-time Big Ten Coach of the Year is still searching for her answer about her doubles lineups. It even interrupts her sleep schedule.
“I wake up in the middle dreaming about the doubles lineup or thinking about the doubles lineup,” Pollard said. “I keep waking up. I’m not lying. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about the doubles lineup.”
After Friday’s 4-0 loss to No. 11 Ohio State, Pollard debuted her seventh doubles combination — playing senior Kiley Rabjohns and freshman Erica Jessel together for the first time this season — in Big Ten play Sunday against No. 42 Penn State. Last season, Pollard used just three doubles teams during the conference slate.
The No. 47-ranked Wildcats (11-11, 4-6 Big Ten) captured just their second doubles point since March 16 en route to its 4-0 sweep of the Nittany Lions (13-7, 4-6 Big Ten).
On all three doubles courts, NU jumped out to an early break lead. The ’Cats continued their control on the point to win the point for the first time since taking it against Oregon on March 24.
“The doubles has definitely been something we’ve been trying to solve,” Pollard said. “It was nice (to win that point).”
The first match of the day to finish was the team that recently came to Pollard in her sleep. At the No. 3 position, Rabjohns and Jessel won 6-2 after taking a double-break lead to go up 5-2.
At the No. 1 position, graduate student Britany Lau and freshman Mika Dagan Fruchtman got a crucial break at the 3-3 juncture. Lau then was able to serve out the match at 5-4, capping off a 6-4 win with a forehand down the line winner on the third match point.
The duo was reunited Friday after a successful fall campaign where they were named alternates for the NCAA Doubles Tournament.
“I thought we played really smart and just made a lot of good decisions,” Lau said. “They were very tricky, and I think we just rode the course.”
At the No. 2 slot, senior Sydney Pratt and sophomore Neena Feldman played together after being separated for one contest and had match point at 5-2, 40-40 when the doubles point concluded.
NU started singles play incredibly strong, especially from No. 6 sophomore Autumn Rabjohns and No. 3 Pratt, who won their first sets 6-0 and 6-1, respectively. The ’Cats won four of the six first sets.
Autumn Rabjohns double-bageled her opponent with a 6-0, 6-0 victory in the most dominant victory of her career, tallying the second point of the match for NU. The sophomore was recently inserted back into the singles lineup after Dagan Fruchtman was removed from the lineup.
“I feel like as the season goes on, I just continue to improve in our practices and gain a lot of clarity, which the coaches have really helped me with,” Autumn Rabjohns said. “The clarity portion I feel like has been huge for my game.”
Pratt put the ’Cats up 3-0 with a 6-1, 6-3 win. After falling down 2-0 in the second set, she won six of the next seven games to improve to 14-2 on the season.
Soon thereafter, No. 2 Lau clinched the match for NU with a 7-5, 6-0 victory. After exchanging breaks in the first few games in the match, Lau won 11 of the final 14 games.
“I think I had a very clear gameplan in my head,” Lau said. “I think I was a little tentative in the first set, which kind of stopped me from getting into the net as much as I could or also just putting her on the run as much.”
No. 4 Feldman held a 7-5, 3-2 lead when the match concluded. No. 1 Jessel’s match was unfinished with a 6-5 second set lead after dropping the first set 6-4, and No. 5 Kiley Rabjohns was behind 7-5, 2-1.
The ’Cats’ win meant they avoided losing four consecutive Big Ten matches for the second time in Pollard’s tenure, with the only time this happened coming in 2019.
NU returns to action this weekend when it hosts Illinois April 12 at noon for Senior Day.
Email: c.spungin@dailynorthwestern.com
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