Senior weekend to include ranked competition

Sunday will be Senior Day for IU, and the Hoosiers will play one of the Big Ten’s toughest teams in Northwestern.

Lone senior Evgeniya Vertesheva will be honored at the end of the match, and she said she feels a particular pressure to lead her team.

“I just want to do really well in my last home match,” Vertesheva said. “Especially on my Senior Day, I’ll try to play my best tennis.”

Before the No. 47 Hoosiers (15-8, 4-5) return home Sunday, they will hop on the bus and travel to Champaign, Ill., to play against another top-tier conference foe in the Illinois Fighting Illini.

No. 21 Illinois is one of the hottest teams in the Big Ten, which is reflected in its 15-6 overall record and 7-2 Big Ten record. After dropping three straight matches early in the season, the Illini have been humming through their schedule.

They have won nine of their past 10 matches.

During their streak, they have limited opposing Big Ten teams to either zero or one total team points four times.

The No. 48-ranked Rachael White and Allison Falkin and the No. 59-ranked Marisa Lambropoulos and Melissa Kopinski will battle IU for the doubles point early in the action.

The Illini lack highly ranked singles players, as their lone representative is No. 98 Falkin. She is likely to be on the other side of the court to IU junior Leslie Hureau, who is ranked No. 77 in the nation.

The match against the orange and blue starts at 4 p.m. Friday.

After battling against one of the best teams the Big Ten has to offer Friday, the Hoosiers will get no break in the schedule as they return home to play traditional conference powerhouse Northwestern on Sunday.

Northwestern (15-7, 8-1) is the highest-ranked Big Ten team at No. 12 in the country, according to the Intercollegiate Tennis Association.

After a significant, mid-season lull in which they lost five consecutive matches to high-caliber competition, the Wildcats have found their groove, winning 10 of their last 11. During their tear through the conference, they have beaten eight nationally ranked teams.

The big purple is anchored by No. 17 Kate Turvy and No. 67 Brittany Wowchuk in singles.

They feature the No. 25-ranked tandem of Linda Abu Mushrefova and Nida Hamilton and the No. 90-ranked duo of Mushrefova again and Veronica Corning.

The Hoosiers are currently riding a streak of their own — a three-game losing streak. Vertesheva said she will tell her team not to dwell on last weekend’s losses, underscored by a loss against Wisconsin, who is just 2-7 in the conference.

“We don’t have to lose our confidence after these couple losses because at this point all Big Ten teams are pretty good and on any given day a team can beat another one, and we just have to stay positive,” Vertesheva said.