The Notre Dame tennis teams will continue February action this weekend, both taking on Power 4 opponents. The Irish women (10-1) will open ACC play on Friday afternoon against conference newcomer SMU, while the men’s squad (8-2) will battle Wisconsin on Friday and Northwestern on Sunday.
Women’s tennis
Coming off a 5-2 home win on Sunday against Xavier, the Irish have won three consecutive matches heading into their ACC opener. They still have played just two matches outside of the Eck Tennis Pavilion, both of which they won in New York to start February.
Junior Rylie Hanford continues to lead the Irish with a 9-1 record as Notre Dame’s typical No. 5 singles player, while junior Akari Matsuno, last weekend’s No. 1 singles player, is 6-1. Junior Bojana Pozder, Notre Dame’s No. 2 singles competitor on Sunday, is 8-2, and freshman Bianca Molnar has won a team-high four consecutive contests after her victory in the No. 4 match against Xavier.
Last season, the Irish went 7-6 in ACC play to supplement their 18-10 campaign. Their run in the ACC Tournament featured a defeat of 10th-seed Syracuse and a quarterfinal loss to No. 2 seed Virginia.
SMU carries a 5-4 record into its ACC opener. The Mustangs are 4-1 in their last five after losing three consecutive games, and they’re 0-2 against ACC foes in non-conference matches with a 4-1 loss to Clemson on Jan. 26 and a 5-0 loss to NC State on Feb. 2. Last time out, they held on to defeat Rice on the road by a 4-3 score, as senior Indiana native Ellie Pittman won the decisive No. 2 singles match.
Jeff Nevolo, the 2024 American Athletic Conference Coach of the Year, leads the Mustangs in his sixth season. SMU went 14-12 with ACC Player of the Year Taylor Johnson last season, defeating Alabama in the NCAA Tournament. Freshman Sophie Llewelyn played as SMU’s No. 1 singles competitor last weekend in Houston.
Notre Dame has faced SMU only once in program history, defeating the Mustangs by a 5-1 score on March 24, 2008, in Dallas. They’ll meet again at 4 p.m. on Friday.
Men’s tennis
In its first road match of the season, Notre Dame nearly pulled off a comeback win Saturday night at Illinois but came up short in a 4-3 loss. The Fighting Illini took down each of the top two Irish singles players, junior Sebastian Dominko and senior Yu Zhang. However, Notre Dame found more success in the No. 3 and No. 4 matches, as freshman Peter Nad improved to 8-1 and sophomore Chase Thompson moved to 7-1.
Wisconsin, after going 11-11 in 2023, posted a dreadful 1-22 record last year. The Badgers are off to a much better start this season, going 5-1 with wins in each of their last four matches. They defeated ACC newcomer SMU on Jan. 24 and most recently topped Illinois State on Wednesday.
Junior Michael Minasyan, who played 18 singles matches in the No. 1 spot last year, entered the spring season on the Big Ten’s players to watch list. Elsewhere on the roster, Swiss freshman Edouard Aubert already has a Big Ten Freshman of the Week award under his belt from the middle of January.
Coming in at 4-5, Northwestern is looking to build back up after a 10-19 down year in 2024. The Wildcats reached the NCAA Tournament with 21 wins just two seasons ago but could only muster an NIT appearance last year. They swept their doubleheader against Illinois State and IU Indy last weekend after losing five straight matches against Louisville, No. 24 Harvard, No. 7 Duke, Vanderbilt and Clemson.
Norwegian senior Felix Nordby, who has split between No. 2 and No. 3 singles, leads the Wildcats with a 6-1 individual record and has won four consecutive contests. Sophomore Greyson Casey has spent the most time as their No. 1 player, going 4-4 overall. Graduate student Saiprakash Goli was named a Big Ten player to watch before the season and owns a 3-5 record thus far.
All-time, the Irish are 54-18 against Wisconsin and 48-40-1 against Northwestern. They’ll host the Badgers at 4 p.m. on Friday before visiting the Wildcats at 1 p.m. on Sunday.
