Notre Dame is back from Stillwater, Oklahoma, and preparing for its upcoming matchups this Sunday against Illinois and Bowling Green at Eck Tennis Pavilion.
After two stinging defeats at the hands of No. 10 Oklahoma State and Arizona State this past weekend at the ITA Kickoff Weekend moved the team to 1-2 on the season, the Irish are looking to get back on track and over .500 Saturday.
“Our goals are to win,” Irish head coach Jay Louderback said. “We need to come out quicker in the doubles and not be playing from behind. We need to look to be more aggressive when we have leads.”
To begin their Saturday doubleheader, the 33rd-ranked Irish will first take on the Fighting Illini (3-1), who are coming off a successful weekend in Lubbock, Texas, at their edition of the ITA Kickoff Weekend. Illinois started its weekend at Texas Tech by upsetting Virginia Tech before falling to the host No. 17 Red Raiders in the championship match.
When the new ITA rankings came out this week, the Fighting Illini were rewarded for their efforts, moving up five spots to 53.
To get out to a quick lead like Louderback wants, the Irish will rely on their No. 1 doubles team, made up of all-ACC tandem of senior Quinn Gleason and junior Monica Robinson. The Irish pair, who qualified in doubles for the NCAA championships last year, is No. 32 in the nation and is coming off its best win of the season rankings-wise last weekend against Oklahoma State, where it upended the nation’s No. 9-ranked doubles pair, 6-1.
While the duo had success last weekend, there wasn’t much else working for Notre Dame, which lost 4-0 to both the Cowboys and Sun Devils, failing to record a singles win. The No. 1 doubles team notched the only win of the weekend, with its flight against Arizona State suspended while ahead 5-2.
Opposing Gleason and Robinson will be Illinois junior Louise Kwong and freshman Ines Vias, who are also coming off an impressive win, as they took down the No. 25-ranked doubles team from Texas Tech, 6-1.
Following their matches against the Illini, the Irish will compete against Bowling Green, which comes into the contest with a 1-2 record on the season, with a win over Detroit and losses to Ohio State and Northern Kentucky. The Falcons will stop by the Dayton for a matchup with the Flyers on Friday before continuing to South Bend for Sunday’s match against the Irish.
Both matchups will take place Sunday at Eck Tennis Pavilion; Notre Dame and Illinois will go at it first at 11 a.m., while the Falcons and Irish are slated for a 5 p.m. start.
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