The IU women’s tennis team heads into the final two weeks of its season tied with Minnesota for ninth in the Big Ten with the top ten teams making the Big Ten Tournament on April 27.
The Hoosiers and Golden Gophers are both 2-5 in the conference and are both .500 overall. IU Coach Ramiro Azcui said the match against Minnesota will be huge for his team.
Before the two square off in a tiebreaker match for ninth place, however, they’ll both have a match two days before. Minnesota will play Purdue, and IU will play Wisconsin.
The Badgers have yet to get a conference win, are 0-7 in the Big Ten and have won just four matches on the season.
“We are really focused on Wisconsin,” senior Paula Gutierrez said. “We are going to try and take advantage with them being 0-7 in the conference and just take things match by match.”
IU is coming off two losses to Illinois, 6-1, and Northwestern, 7-0, this past weekend. In the match against Northwestern four out of the six singles matches went into third sets, which gave the Hoosiers a chance to take a 4-3 victory.
“I think we played really good against Northwestern but we need to have a better attitude in the third sets,” Gutierrez said. “We need to save our energy by not talking as much on the court or complaining as much about calls to make those third sets better.”
After facing Wisconsin, IU will head to Minnesota. Azcui said the team is going to use the day off between the matches to get prepared for Minnesota’s courts.
“Their courts are a little different,” Azcui said. “They are maroon with yellow lines, which is a little bit of a different feel. So, we are going to have to adjust well to that as well as just playing on the road in general.”
The Hoosiers have only picked up one road victory this season at Purdue in a 4-3 win, but they’ve only played three true road matches this season. Eighteen of the 22 matches played this season have been in Bloomington. Those days are over, though. The remaining matches of the season are all on the road, as is the Big Ten Tournament.
“It’s going to be all mental,” Azcui said. “Staying on the road for three days a week is tough, so I think it’ll come down to how well we can prepare mentally.”
The match against Wisconsin is 6 p.m. Friday, and the match against Minnesota will take place 11 a.m. Sunday.
“Everybody is looking to advance,” Azcui said. “We need to be ready for anything that’ll get thrown at us, which is why I want to make sure the team takes care of our side first before we worry about anybody else.”
