Women’s Tennis to Clash with Iowa in First Round of Big Ten Tournament

Big Ten Tournament First Round
#13 Michigan State (9-13, 1-10 B1G) vs. #12 Iowa (6-16, 2-9 B1G)
Date: Wednesday, April 27
Time: 2 p.m. CT (3 p.m. ET)
Location: Hawkeye Tennis & Recreation Complex (Iowa City, Iowa)
Live Stats: StatBroadcast
Watch: Big Ten Plus
Tournament Central: BigTen.org
 
EAST LANSING, Mich. – After finishing the regular season on Sunday, the Michigan State women’s tennis team will make the trek to Iowa City on Wednesday, April 27 for the first round of the Big Ten Tournament. The No. 13-seed Spartans are set to begin play at 3 p.m. ET, taking on tournament host and 12th-seeded Iowa at the Hawkeye Tennis & Recreation Complex.
 
Ending with a 1-10 record in conference play, MSU will look to advance to the second round of the B1G Tournament, which the team has reached every year during head coach Kim Bruno‘s tenure aside from the cancelled 2020 conference championship.
 
Michigan State is coming off a two-loss weekend at home to close out the regular season, dropping a 4-0 contest to No. 39 Northwestern on Saturday before falling by a 4-1 final to No. 47 Illinois on Sunday to spoil the Spartans’ Senior Day.
 
The match with the Wildcats started with Northwestern winning the doubles point via victories on the second and third courts, as the top court went unfinished with senior Maja Pietrowicz and graduate student Mary Lewis holding a 4-3 lead over Clarissa Hand and Maria Shusharina. Northwestern then captured wins on the fourth, second and fifth singles courts to clinch the match, leaving Lewis’ No. 1 singles match against the 113th-ranked Hand abandoned, along with sophomore Ayshe Can on the third court and freshman Charlotte Gisclon in the No. 6 spot.
 
Illinois opened the regular-season finale by picking up doubles wins on the second and third courts as well to take a 1-0 lead, while Josie Frazier defeated Pietrowicz in the No. 3 singles match and Megan Heuser beat senior Lauren Lemonds in two sets on the fourth court to put Illinois on the edge of clinching. Gisclon then got a 6-4, 6-0 win over Emily Casati to earn a point for MSU on the No. 6 court, but Kasia Treiber closed out the Fighting Illini win with a three-set victory over senior Nicole Stephens.
 
Can holds the team lead with 13 singles wins this season, while Gisclon, Lemonds and Pietrowicz all have 12 victories in singles play….