EVANSTON, Ill. – Illinois women’s tennis climbed to 9-4 on the season and 2-0 in Big Ten play with a 4-3 victory at No. 72 Northwestern Friday night. Action took place from the Combe Tennis Center in Evanston, Ill. The Illini have now won three-straight matches against the Wildcats for the first time in program history.
No. 28 Illinois is now 2-2 when playing ITA-ranked teams this season. Northwestern dropped to 5-8 overall and 1-1 in B1G play with Friday’s result.
The Illini doubles crews made quick work of the Wildcats to earn the first point of the match. No. 30 ranked Kate Duong and Megan Heuser earned a 6-2 win to improve to 16-3 overall on the season. Josie Frazier and Violeta Martinez didn’t need much longer to earn a 6-3 win at No. 2 doubles in their first outing together.
Northwestern evened the match with a 6-2, 6-2 win on the top singles court.
Kasia Treiber would put the Illini up 2-1 with a 6-2, 6-4 victory at No. 5 singles. The sophomore trailed 1-2 in the first set before rattling off five straight games for the victory and would never look back.
NU responded once again, taking a straight-set win at No. 2 singles. The Wildcats took a 3-2 lead after closing out a 6-4, 6-4 win at No. 6 singles.
From there, Josie Frazier won 5-of-6 games to close out her first set for a 6-4 win. She claimed a second-set tiebreaker, 7-4, after trailing 4-5 in the set.
All eyes turned to court No. 3, where Heuser earned a three-set win over No. 103 Christina Hand. After dropping the opening frame 6-1, Heuser trailed 2-3 in set two before winning four-straight games to even the match. In the final set, the sophomore rattled off three-straight games to go up 4-1 and never looked back to clinch the victory for Illinois.
The victories by Frazier (10-7) and Heuser (10-8) put them both into double-digit wins on the season. Treiber climbed to 11-9 with her singles win.
Illinois continues its four-match road trip with a spring break trip to Arizona. On Tuesday, the Orange and Blue will visit Arizona for an 11 a.m. CT tilt before taking on New Mexico State in a neutral-site match at 3 p.m. later in the day from Tuscon.
FULL RESULTS: NO. 28 ILLINOIS 4, NO. 72 NORTHWESTERN 3
Doubles:
No. 1 – No. 30 Kate Duong/Megan Heuser def. Leong/Pratt – 6-2
No. 2 – Josie Frazier/ Violeta Martinez def. Crowley/Hand -…
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