By Nicholas Moreano
The Iowa women’s tennis team will return to the Big Ten Tournament for the first time since 2014. In the first round, the seventh-seed Hawkeyes will face 10th-seed Indiana at 2 p.m. today in Champaign, Illinois.
Ten teams made the tournament, and the seednings are: No. 1 Ohio State, No. 2 Michigan, No. 3 Northwestern, No. 4 Illinois, No. 5 Maryland, No. 6 Michigan State, No. 8 Minnesota, and No. 9 Nebraska.
Today’s matchup against Hoosiers will be a rematch from earlier this season. On March 11, the Hawkeyes defeated the Hoosiers, 6-1, for their first conference victory of the season.
Even though the Hawkeyes may have defeated the Hoosiers, they refuse to underestimate their opponent. The focus remains getting past the Hoosiers and then hopefully getting a chance at redemption against the Wolverines.
“We’ve all looked at the bracket, and we know if we win, it’s Michigan,” senior Aimee Tarun said in a release. “But the first thing we have to do is focus on Indiana. We beat them, 6-1, but it was closer than that. They’re a really good team, and Sasha has been telling us that everyone will be coming to play because it is survive and advance. There is no underestimating anyone. We’re just focused on Indiana right now.”
Head coach Sasha Schmid is proud that her team qualified for the tournament, but as the program moving forward, she expects nothing less.
“Hopefully, this becomes standard for us,” she said in a release. “It’s a goal that we should reach every single year, and it can hopefully springboard from the Big Ten Tournament to the NCAA Tournament. We’ve made progress, and this is a great experience for everyone to know what it feels like to play for a spot in the NCAA Tournament.”
