After winning the doubles competition at the ITA Midwest Regional, Kate Duong and Megan Heuser will travel to San Diego for the ITA National Fall Championships on Wednesday. The pair’s victory was the first by an Illinois duo since 2012, while they are just the third Illini tandem in program history to win a regional title and the first to advance to nationals.
Duong and Heuser started competing together in doubles last season, and they instantly connected. Head coach Evan Clark uses fall competition to experiment with doubles pairings, but he could tell the Duong/Heuser duo would work early into the year.
Clark says their personalities and playing styles created instant chemistry, but it was Heuser who approached her head coach to advocate for their partnership.
“I sat down with Coach, and I was like, ‘I think me and Kate would be great together,’ Heuser said. “We both complement each other’s games very well. She’s solid from the baseline, very solid at the net, and she can set me up very easily. She just has a lot of strengths in her game that work with my strengths, and we both balance each other out. She’s just a great doubles partner, both on the court and off the court, a great friend, and a great teammate as well.”
While Heuser headed into college as a strong doubles player, Duong prided herself as being better at singles. In her first season at Illinois in 2021, Duong went 14-8 in singles play and 13-9 in doubles competition while playing with three different partners.
When Duong got the opportunity to team up with Heuser, who is one year younger, she knew their partnership was much different from any pairing she had previously been in.
“I think Megan is one of the best doubles players that I’ve played with,” Duong said. “I was really excited to play with her because I knew that she was a very solid doubles player coming in and I could learn a lot from her. I’ve played with some other doubles players where we have a very similar game style, so sometimes it doesn’t work in doubles. I like to assist people. I like to set people up. If I have another person that plays like that, then it’s kind of tough to win points.
“I think since we do complement each other well, that’s why it was able to work out.”
It was not smooth sailing in the early stages last year, though, as the pair faced some rough seas in the…
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