Women's tennis loses ranking, looks to recover

After losing the past three dual matches 4-3 to Tennessee, Kentucky and Notre Dame, the IU women’s tennis team has fallen out of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association rankings. The Hoosiers will look to rebound with a pair of duals on Sunday against No. 66 DePaul and UNC-Wilmington. IU will face the Blue Demons at 11 a.m. and the
Seahawks at 5 p.m. at the IU Tennis Center.

The Hoosiers are 8-3 this season after winning their first eight dual matches, in which they lost only two singles matches, but have lost three consecutive duals since their hot start.

IU Coach Lin Loring maintains a positive attitude about the team after narrowly losing to Notre Dame last Sunday and he said the women are playing very well.

“It was the best team singles we’ve played and the only matches we lost were three-setters,” Loring said. “It was a situation where we don’t have everybody totally doing everything on the same day. It’s just that a little something always goes wrong in these big matches. We put ourselves in a position to win.”

Loring said this week the team practiced having better depth in the court in singles to prepare for this weekend’s dual matches.

After defeating Notre Dame’s No. 30 doubles pair of Britney Sanders/Julie Sabacinski, IU senior Leslie Hureau and junior Sophie Garre are ranked No. 44 in doubles.

DePaul boasts the No. 85 singles player, freshman Matea Cutura. Cutura was named the Big East Player of the Week in the first week of February after starting the season with a 14-3 singles record that included three wins against ranked opponents.

The Blue Demons are 9-3 with two dominant wins over Big Ten opponents. They defeated Iowa 5-2 and Michigan State 6-1. DePaul is undefeated on the road this season and will play at No. 18 Notre Dame on Saturday before facing IU on Sunday.
Loring said DePaul is as good as Notre Dame, Kentucky and Tennessee.

IU is 7-3 against DePaul in the past decade. IU sophomore Carolyn Chupa was the hero in last season’s 4-3 victory against the Blue Demons when she came from behind
to defeat then-sophomore Kelsey Lawson 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-4) to give the Hoosiers in the deciding singles match.

UNC-Wilmington is 4-2 this season. The Seahawks’ two losses were both in competitive 4-3 matches, including a loss to then-No. 53 William & Mary.

UNC-Wilmington is 2-1 on the road and will host South Florida on Friday before travelling to Bloomington.

Junior Angie Sekely was named the Colonial Athletic Association’s Women’s Tennis Player of the Week on Feb. 12, after winning a pair of singles matches in the No. 1 position against conference opponents.

Loring said UNC-Wilmington will be tough because IU plays them in the second dual match this weekend.

“I think we’ll be the better team but it just depends on what the DePaul match takes out of us,” he said.

Loring said he expects IU to play another 4-3 match against DePaul.

“You can have a three hour 4-3 match or a four and a half hour 4-3 match and I’m hoping it’s not a four and a half hour match,” he said. “We’re going to need a little bit of recovery time to get ready for Wilmington because they’re going to put a lot of balls in the court.”