Women's tennis dominates Wisconsin

The No. 38 IU women’s tennis team, the 6-seed in the Big Ten Tournament, bounced back from a pair of losses last weekend by defeating 11-seed Wisconsin 4-0 in the first round Thursday afternoon.

The team will play 3-seed Northwestern, the No. 15 team in the nation, at 2 p.m. Friday.

“It was really good,” IU Coach Lin Loring said. “We hadn’t played on the courts since they had been resurfaced so I’m happy that we got to play outdoors and happy to get the win.”

IU has had Wisconsin’s number recently. The Hoosiers defeated the Badgers 7-0 April 14 at home and knocked them off in the first round of last year’s Big Ten Tournament.
“It was definitely a confidence booster because we kicked their butt,” sophomore Carolyn Chupa said.

Thursday marked the first time Indiana played on the resurfaced IU Varsity Tennis Courts.

Playing outdoors brought gusts of wind that the Hoosiers had not experienced during their months of indoor training at the IU Tennis Center.

“In the beginning it was really windy, especially for me because I was playing a girl who was pretty crafty so she wasn’t missing much at the beginning,” senior Leslie Hureau said. “I had to adjust and make sure that I was patient.”

Despite the variables that came with playing outdoors, playing in Bloomington is an advantage for the Hoosiers.

Chupa said IU has a bigger fan base because the team is hosting the tournament and also said that she benefits from staying at home.

Hureau said it was nice for the team to not have to travel at the end of the season when the women are tired from conference play.

“It’s nice to be home and we have a nice crowd,” she said. “It’s just awesome for me to play one more time in front of everyone, especially with all of the parents coming, it’s great.”

Chupa was back in the lineup after not playing last weekend due to a concussion. She and Hureau were paired for the No. 1 doubles match. The duo jumped out to a 4-0 lead and Wisconsin struggled to return the ball within the court.

IU won the No. 1 match 8-4 and the sophomore tandem of Alecia Kauss and Shannon Murdy defeated Katie Hoch and Anastasia Tripolskaya 8-2 in the No. 2 position to earn the overall doubles point.

Since Penn State and Minnesota played simultaneously with IU and Wisconsin, each match was allotted 5 of the 10 IU Varsity courts for singles play. The tournament officials drew the number two, which meant sophomore Katie Klyczek, who is ranked No. 103 in singles, and Wisconsin’s Lauren Chypyha had to wait until another match finished before they started playing in the No. 2 singles match.

The team had a slow start in singles and the Hoosiers were losing early in three of the five singles matches.

Loring said patience was critical in the first round matchup.

Both Hureau and junior Sophie Garre were losing early in their matches before winning four consecutive games to win their first sets of the No. 1 and No. 5 singles matches, respectively.

Later, within the span of seconds, Chupa won the No. 3 singles match 6-2, 6-2 against Tripolskaya and Hureau defeated Berner 6-3, 6-1 in the No. 1 match to give IU a 3-0 lead.

Kauss worked efficiently and defeated Lauren Burich 6-1, 6-1 in the No. 4 spot to earn IU’s fourth and final point of the match.

With the victory, IU will face Northwestern with the chance to move on to the Big Ten Tournament semifinals Saturday.

The Hoosiers lost 6-1 to the Wildcats in Evanston, Ill. last Sunday.

“Carolyn is back in the lineup so we’re going to have different matchups,” Hureau said. “It’s never good to play someone who just beat you three days ago so that’s going to be good for us.”

Loring said for IU to defeat Northwestern, the women will have to play better than they did against Wisconsin, especially in doubles.

“I can definitely say that we’re kind of gunning for them since we lost,” Chupa said. “We have the home court advantage now and since I’m playing I know the lineup changes so it will be a different match.”