The Iowa women’s tennis team’s regular season concludes with a road trip to the Land of Lincoln this weekend, beginning with a faceoff against Northwestern on Saturday at 12 p.m. The next day, the Hawkeyes will venture south to Champaign to play Illinois at noon. The Illini own a 17-6 overall record and rank third in the Big Ten standings.

After besting Rutgers and Maryland last weekend, Iowa now boast a 6-4 conference record, currently pitting them at a tie in fifth place with Purdue. If Iowa wins both of its matches, and fourth-place Wisconsin loses at least one of its two remaining matches, the Hawkeyes will lock up the No. 4 seed at the Big Ten Championships later this month.

Looking to tame the ’Cats  

Northwestern has been rolling so far this month. After taking a shutout loss to Michigan on April 1, the Wildcats ripped off four straight wins, all against conference opponents. This streak was snapped in the ‘Cats’ most recent match against Wisconsin, where the Badgers blanked Northwestern in Madison.

Last season, the Wildcats featured two players on the All-Big Ten first team: Maria Shusharina and Clarissa Hand. Now a junior, Shusharina has compiled an 8-7 record in singles, all in the No. 1 or 2 slots, with six unfinished matches. Even though Hand graduated in May of 2022, her younger sister, Christina, has stepped up in her absence, earning a season-high national ranking of 54 in January.

The Wildcats are 9-12 on the season with a 5-4 conference record, but they have two wins against nationally-ranked teams, and on March 10, narrowly lost, 4-3, to then-No. 28  Illinois.

Regardless of the opposition’s prestige, the Hawks are keeping their attention on themselves and their own strategy.

“I think every match in the Big Ten has been competitive, so I don’t think we change that much,” Iowa head coach Sasha Schmid told The Daily Iowan on Tuesday. “I think it’s just a matter of thinking about ourselves and what we need to work on. Really staying focused to, you know, being able to work on being aggressive, our doubles [play], and high percentage serves and returns.”

Tournament rematch  

The April 23 contest against Illinois will be a revenge match for the Hawkeyes. The last time Iowa faced off against Illinois was in the second round Big Ten Championships in 2022, where the Black and Gold dropped a 4-3 heartbreaker in Iowa City.

Illinois was ranked 48th in the nation in that match, and this year, the Illini are 31st in the country. Head coach Evan Clark’s squad is headlined by 2022 All-Big Ten team member Kate Duong, who went 12-9 in singles last season at the No. 1 spot and was named team MVP. This season, however, Duong is only 1-4 against conference opponents.

Instead, the Illini’s production mainly comes from sophomores Kida Ferrari, Megan Heuser, and Kaisa Treiber, as well as seniors Josie Frazier and Ashley Yeah. The unit combined for a 70-47 overall singles record to go along with a 21-4 mark in the Big Ten.

Treiber, Duong, and Yeah all defeated their Hawkeye counterparts in the Big Ten Championships, while Frazier was beaten by then-Iowa sophomore Vipasha Mehra and Heuser was vanquished by then-senior Samantha Mannix.

“Over the course of time you really get to know a team … but other than playing somebody with a really unique game style, we really still try to focus on ourselves,” Schmid said. “I don’t think we’ve been in a situation where I haven’t really tried to create a sense of urgency.”