The Iowa women’s tennis team completed its two-match homestand this weekend with an undefeated record, beating Rutgers, 4-2, on Friday, then delivering a 4-3 victory over Maryland two days later. 

The Hawkeyes are now 11-8  on the season and 6-4 in conference play, tying them with Purdue for fifth place in the Big Ten 

Advantageous adjustments 

The Hawkeyes and Scarlet Knights held their dual outdoors at the Hawkeye Tennis and Recreation Complex and the home team showed signs of comfortability in the elements by clinching the doubles point. 

Iowa’s No. 1 pair of fifth-year senior Samantha Mannix and junior Vipasha Mehra set the tone early with a 6-1 victory. Then, the Hawkeye No. 3 team of sophomore Barbora Pokorna and freshman Pia Kranholdt continued the momentum with a 6-4 victory in its match. 

With a 1-0 lead heading into singles play, the Black and Gold found themselves knotted at two apiece with the Scarlet Knights. Kranholdt earned a straight-set win, 6-3, 7-6, but Mehra was defeated in straight sets while Mannix took a 6-3 loss in the third set to drop her match. 

“I think it really speaks highly of the competitive teams in the league this year, no match is easy,” Hawkeye head coach Sasha Schmid said. 

Iowa then thwarted a Rutgers comeback with two singles-match wins from sophomore Marisa Schmidt and Pokorna to clinch the victory. 

For Schmidt, her three-set triumph over Scarlet Knight junior Tara Chilton was defined by her adjustments to the outdoors. Playing at the No. 2 singles slot, the Germany native struggled to adapt to the slower ball speed and dropped the first set, 6-4. 

Tied at five games apiece in the second set, Schmidt took the next two games to win, 7-5, and in the third set, she dominated to a 6-1 victory. 

“I played more offensive and aggressive,” Schmidt said. “I knew I needed to take the balls earlier and sometimes needed to approach [the net], which I didn’t do at first.” 

Calm in the clutch  

Unlike against Rutgers, the Hawkeyes dropped the doubles point to the Terrapins. The No. 2 Iowa team of Schmidt and freshman Daianne Hayashida dropped its match, 6-1, while Pokorna and Kranholdt were bested, 6-4, in the third spot. 

Trailing, 1-0, Iowa evened the match at two after going 2-1 in the first three singles matches. 

Mannix, who was riding a three-match losing streak in the No. 1 slot heading into Sunday, snapped the spell with a straight-set win, 6-2, 6-4, over Maryland’s Martin Perez Mur. 

“I really think she served well, stayed calm, believed in herself, and trusted her game,” Schmid said of Mannix. “She rode out the ebbs and flows. It’s never easy to close out a match, and I think she held it together and did that really well.” 

Competing the No. 3 singles spot, Hayashida defeated former All-Big Ten player Selma Cadar in straight sets, 6-1, 7-5. 

“I was really proud of the way she fought in that second set to close it out,” Schmid said of Hayashida. “Same thing, like I said before, it’s not easy to close out matches, and I thought she really stepped up on some really crucial deuce points, played aggressively, and did so to close out the match.” 

The score moved to three apiece after Pokorna completed a three-set win over Terrapin Hannah McColgan, and Mehra dropped her match to Maryland’s Kallista Liu in three sets. 

Then all eyes turned to Court 2, where Schmidt was battling Maryland’s Minorka Miranda. Schmidt had split the first two sets, 4-6, 7-5, and now found herself with her teammates lined up watching her on the sidelines. 

“I was a little bit nervous, but I just tried to focus on my match,” Schmidt said. “Like, not to look at my teammates and just focus on Sasha and my game. I always try to, after every point, go back to the fence and just, like, take a deep breath and focus on the next point.” 

In the third set, Miranda was one point away from taking a game multiple times, but Schmidt won the final two games to take the set and the match for the Hawkeyes, and her teammates mobbed her on the court when the final point was awarded. 

“She’s never been in that situation before, that’s her first clincher,” Schmid said of Schmidt. “I was really just asking her to be positive, brave, and courageous. And, you know, you can only learn from those experiences when you’re in them and she just navigated it really well … She’s been working really hard on trusting herself under pressure and not playing conservative, and she did a great job today. I’m really proud of her.” 

Up next

The Hawkeyes’ regular season concludes next weekend with road matches against Northwestern on April 22 and Illinois the next day. 

The Wildcats currently rank 70th in the nation with a 9-12 overall record, going 5-4 in the Big Ten, while the 34th-ranked Illini are 17-6 and have gone 8-1 in the conference.