Both the Iowa men’s and women’s tennis teams are off to a fast start this season, with the women yet to lose and the men picking up one of the bigger wins in program history.
This past weekend, the women took on Northern Illinois at home, and the men took a trip to Texas to compete in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Kickoff.
By Nicholas Moreano and Jake Markowitz
Both the Iowa men’s and women’s tennis teams are off to a fast start this season, with the women yet to lose and the men picking up one of the bigger wins in program history.
This past weekend, the women took on Northern Illinois at home, and the men took a trip to Texas to compete in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Kickoff.
Women make it three straight
The women’s team swept Northern Illinois, 7-0, at the Hawkeye Tennis & Recreation Complex on Jan. 28 for its third-straight victory. With the victory, the Hawkeyes have swept an opponent for the second week in a row.
Last week, head coach Sasha Schmid said she wanted the Hawkeyes to become an aggressive doubles team, and since the Hawkeyes lost the doubles point to Central Florida in the season-opener, the Hawkeyes have gone on to win two-straight doubles points.
It started with senior Aimee Tarun and sophomore Kristen Thoms defeating the Huskies’ duo of Pauline Chawafambira and Abigail Dekkinga (6-0). Senior Natalie Looney and junior Anastasia Reimchen then defeated Brodie Walker and Evelyn Youel (6-3) to give the Hawkeyes a 1-0 lead.
“I think we did a really good job today on being clear with what we wanted to do,” Schmid said in a release.
In singles, the Hawkeyes dominated. Both Tarun and freshman Elise van Heuvelen defeated their respective opponents in straight sets to give the Hawkeyes a 3-0 lead.
With momentum on the Hawkeyes’ side and a chance to clinch the victory, junior Montana Crawford, who made her 2017 season début, defeated Walker in straight sets.
Junior Zoe Douglas, Thoms, and Reimchen finished the sweep for the Hawkeyes.
On Feb. 5, the undefeated Hawkeyes will host Iowa State at 2:30 p.m. and Montana at 6 p.m. — Nicholas Moreano
Hawkeye men split in Texas
The Iowa men’s tennis team fell to No. 20 Mississippi State in the championship match of the Kickoff event this past weekend. The loss was the Hawkeye’s first of the spring, dropping them to 3-1.
The weekend started well for the Hawkeyes, picking up a major road win Jan. 28 against host Texas Tech, 4-3. The win was clinched after junior Josh Silverstein came back from a 4-1 deficit in the third set to send the match into a tiebreaker, in which he defeated No. 25 Jolan Cailleau.
“Before we left campus, we talked about how this weekend was going to be completely about how we compete mentally, about how we handle the good things and the bad things,” Iowa head coach Ross Wilson said in a release.
The Hawkeyes did not enjoy the same success Sunday, losing 4-1 in the championship match.
“You always want to win, obviously, but just the goals we had as a team, how we competed, how we handled ourselves emotionally, I thought we did an unbelievable job,” Wilson said.
The only singles victory for the Hawkeyes came from junior Lefteris Theodorou, pulling off a 6-4, 6-3 win over Mate Cutura.
Senior Robin Haden played his former team for the first time but came up short, falling in straight sets (6-3, 6-4).
“Mississippi State is a great team that’s been in this position a lot more times than we have,” Wilson said. “We definitely will learn from this.”
The Hawkeyes will return home on Friday to host Omaha and Drake at the Hawkeye Tennis & Recreation Complex.
