For Northwestern, both the men’s and women’s tennis teams have been busy the past couple weeks. Both ‘Cats teams competed in the ITA Division I Regional Championships for the Midwest region, while the women also competed in the TCU JAE Foundation Battle for the Boot invitational and the men also competed in the Big Ten Individual Championships.
ITA Midwest regionals (Oct. 15 to Oct. 19)
We’ll start with the ITA Midwest regionals, which both teams competed at.
The women sent a full roster to the regionals, which was hosted by the University
of Illinois in Champaign. The Wildcats competed in both the singles and doubles matches, giving themselves a true test at where they stood at the halfway point in the season.
The action began on Thursday Oct. 8, when five ‘Cats took on the singles qualifying round and all five made it out as they sought play in the main draw of the tournament. Four of the five won in straight sets — Aely Arai, Marelie Raath, Philippa Färber and Mika Dagan Fruchtman — to advance to the round of 32 while Katya Sheperd Johnson had to battle out three sets with with UIC’s Nia Cooper to barely take the win (7-6 (3), 6-7 (9), 6-2).
After all five singles advanced to the round of 32 following the qualifying round, only four representing the purple and white were able to advance to the next round and they all did it in different ways. Färber narrowly squeaked it out in a tiebreak victory over her Eastern Michigan opponent, while Arai split her first two sets before she outlasted her competition in the third round, 6-4, to move on. Dagan Fruchtman defeated her Youngstown State opponent after only dropping one game, and, lastly, Raath picked up a convincing, second-straight two set win, winning 6-2, 6-3 over Illinois foe Risa Ueno. Unfortunately, Johnson was not able to make it past this round, and her singles action was cut short.
Friday was the start of doubles for the Wildcats, who had four sets of duos taking on the courts. In similar fashion to the singles, all the duos who took action won their respective matches, advancing them to the round of 32. However, in the round of 32 the number of duos remaining for the Wildcats was cut in half, as the duos of Fruchtman and Autumn Rabjohns, and Arai partnered with Maia Loureiro, took defeat. Yet, the duos of Raath and Neena Feldman, who are the ITA’s No. 85 ranked duo, and the duo of Färber and Erica Jessel, kept their campaign alive as they defeated their Eastern Michigan opponents.
Friday at the regionals also featured some additional singles preliminary matches. The remaining players from Thursday’s action continued play, while Feldman, Jessel, Rabjohns and Loureiro participated in their qualifying rounds. Unfortunately, the ‘Cats only came away with 3 singles victories Friday, though all were in straight sets. Jessel won 6-2, 6-0 over her Bowling Green opponent, Rabjohns defeated her Michigan State opponent 6-2, 6-1, and Arai secured her spot in the round of 16 with a 6-3, 6-1 victory over a Michigan foe. That wrapped up the competition for Friday.
Saturday, the Wildcats entered in their remaining singles and duos matches. In doubles, both of the ‘Cats’ remaining duos were dropped by their opponents. In a hopes to make up for their doubles losses, the NU turned its focus to singles, but Jessel was the only Wildcat to come away victorious, as both Arai and Rabjohns fell to Illinois opponents.
In the finals singles match for the women, Jessel played in the round of 16, however was quickly bounced in straight sets by Illinois’ Ariel Matadali.
In a weekend that started strong for the ‘Cats they quickly realized the competition they faced, yet still had a good showing in their midway test.
For the men they began their ITA Midwest Regionals in Columbus on Thursday Oct. 15, sending their players east for a test before the upcoming Big Ten Individual Championships.
In the qualifying round of singles the Wildcats had Ethan Schiffman, Cyrus Mahjoob, Cooper Han and Greyson Casey all compete for a chance to advance. Only two of them would win their matches to advance to the round of 32: Casey against Northern Illinois opponent Lorenzo Leti Messina in straight sets, (7-6, 7-6), and Mahjoob who out-dueled his Big Ten foe Fredrik Krogh Solheim from Michigan in three sets.
Moving onto the round of 32 on Sunday, Mahjoob would lose in straight sets to an Ohio State opponent, but Casey would hold it down for them and advance to the round of 16, after beating his Ohio State opponent in straight sets. That, however, would be the last singles win for the men.
Moving onto the doubles matches for the weekend Northwestern had three duos try their role to show their potential against top competitions. The duo of Casey and Douglas Yaffa won a convincing match against the duo sent by Wisconsin, defeating them 8-2. The duo of Chad Miller and Cooper Han had a first round bye due to previous performances, meaning they had an automatic entry into the next round. Unfortunately, the third duo, Mahjoob and Schiffman, was sent home early, getting bounced in a close 8-5 loss by a UIC duo, Victor Dorojan and Mihalio Savic. In the next round, with only two duos remaining, the ‘Cats were only able to take one match. as the duo of Casey and Yaffa lost to University of Illinois duo who had received the first round bye, losing 8-3. However the duo of Miller and Han, who had received a bye, were able to power through the Notre Dame duo Evan Lee and Kyran Magimay, in a nail-biting 8-7 win.
However, that would be that last win for the men as the duo went on to lose in the round of 16 to their Michigan foes.
Though they hoped it would be a greater, the Wildcats showed what they need to work on in the back half of the season. This proved to be a good test as they looked toward the Big Ten Individual Championships.
TCU invitational (Oct. 23 to Oct. 25)
We’ll now move to the TCU invite where the women travelled to Fort Worth, Texas, to take on another test before the ITA Central sectionals.
The matches started on Friday, Oct. 23, when the team played both singles and doubles. In the singles matches, Northwestern played nine total matches, winning five of them. The wins came from Jessel, Rabjohns and Färber against Missouri opponents, and Raath and Johnson against their TCU opponents, who they beat in two-set sweeps.
The singles then proceeded to Saturday, when the five who won Friday and four others dueled against UTA, Purdue and Rice opponents. Of the nine matches played Saturday, Northwestern took eight of them. Jessel, Feldman, Fruchtman and Arai all beat UTA opponents in two-set sweeps. Rabjohns and Raath took down their Purdue opponents in two close three-set series. And Johnson beat her Rice foe in two sets, while Färber also got the win against UNT’s Giuliana Ciangherotti in two sets. The only loss for the ‘Cats was Loureiro against Anushka Ashar from Rice.
You would think with all the winning from Saturday that it would carry over to Sunday, but unfortunately that was not the case as in the next round of matches, Northwestern only won two of its nine matches, by Arai and Jessel, both in two sets.
The duo sets for this invite were almost the opposite of the singles, with Northwestern’s tandems starting weak and ending strong.
On Friday, of the four duos sent by Northwestern only the duo of Feldman and Raath, who are ranked No. 85, won against the LSU duo of Aya El Aouini and Ni Xi. As Saturday came around, Northwestern had four duos playing again and half of them won, including the duo of Feldman and Raath who had won prior. They continued their win streak against a Mizzou duo in 6-1 fashion. The duo of Jessel and Loureiro also found the winning column Saturday, bringing more momentum to the duos of the Wildcats.
On the final day of duos, the ‘Cats improved from three wins to four. The two duos who had won previously continued to win, but now there was the addition of duo Dagan Fruchtman and Arai who won 6-4 against UTA opponents. The duos of Feldman and Raath and Jessel and Loureiro both got their wins Sunday against Utah opponents in 6-2 and 7-5 wins.
The Wildcats wrapped up their wins in the invite and showed they can come out and finish strong. The invite tested the ‘Cats and they showed they can compete with some of the nation’s best.
Big Ten Individual Championships (Oct. 29 to Nov. 1)
Lastly, the men’s team played at the Big Ten Individual Championships in Ann Arbor, Michigan, this past weekend.
Northwestern looked to prove to the rest of the conference that it is a real threat. The Wildcats sent four men to compete in singles at the championships: Han, Jacob Golden, Owen Megargee and Vincent Yang. Of the four matches they played in the qualifying round of 64, only Han was able to come away with a win. Han defeated Alex Cairo of Michigan in a two set sweep (6-4, 6-1). Han had a strong showing as he also won in the round of 32 against Danial Rakhmatullayev of Michigan State and then in the round of 16 against Eduard Aubert of Indiana in another two-set sweep (6-3, 7-6). However, Han could not hang in the quarterfinals, as he was swept in two sets and was only able to score one point against Nicholas Heng of Michigan. Despite the loss, it was a great showing by the sophomore ahead of ITA Conference Masters and Sectionals coming up.
For the doubles matches, the Wildcats had two duos compete. The duo of the Han and Golden was defeated in the first round. However, the duo of Yang and Megargee won three matches and advanced all the way to the semifinals, before their eventual defeat to the Ohio State duo of Denis Petak and Victor Lilov, who would eventually go on and win the duos tournament.
Up next
With the halfway point of the season now being in the rearview mirror, the ‘Cats will reflect on their last couple of matches and work to improve their game before the upcoming slate of matches. The men’s team’s next match is ITA Conference Masters in Rome, Georgia, from Nov.5 to Nov. 8, while the women’s team gears up to head back to Fort Worth, Texas for the ITA Central sectional.
