[media-credit name=’UW Athletic Communications’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]The No. 36 Wisconsin women’s tennis team clawed two matches away from the No. 5 Northwestern Wildcats Sunday, falling to the heavily-favored conference rival 5-2 in their first Big Ten action of the season.

“I was pleased,” head coach Patti Henderson said after the match. “We were getting closer, we just got to continue to work on the things that each of [our players] were working on individually and continue to make progress in order to be able to beat Northwestern.”

The Big Ten showdown commenced with Northwestern sweeping the doubles point 3-0. The Badgers’ No. 2 team of Nicole Beck and Caitlin Burke put up the most visible fight, going ahead 2-0 in their match before losing in a tie-break, 8-7(5). Lindsay Martin and Katie McGaffigan (No. 27) also made a notable stand, putting up two games against the Wildcats’ nationally top-ranked team of Audra Cohen and Cristelle Grier.

“Their number one team is the same team but they switched sides,” Henderson said. “And it makes them much better right now on the ad court. And we didn’t play poorly at one doubles — we didn’t play very, very well — we had a hard time … they just made that change, and that paid off for them.”

In the third doubles flight, Kaylan Caiati and Lexi Goldin fell to Northwestern’s Valerie Vladea and Andrea Yung.

Freshman Chelsea Nusslock won the Badgers’ first point of the day at the No. 6 singles flight, dispensing of Alexis Conill in straight sets, 6-4, 6-1.

“I think it went really well. I think that I played much better than I played here three or four weeks ago,” Nusslock said, reflecting on a Jan. 15 loss in Evanston. “And I think I came out a lot stronger this time than I did then.”

Wisconsin’s other tally-mark came out of the No. 5 flight, where redshirt freshman Beck handled Jamie Peisel 7-5, 4-6, 1-0 (10-8), forgoing the final set for a tiebreak since the Wildcats had already clinched the victory.

“Well, I came out knowing I was the underdog,” Beck said. “So I just went out and relaxed and played.”

For Beck, the third-set tiebreak was her second of the day, with the one in her doubles match having put her and Burke on the losing side.

“It definitely rubs off in singles,” Beck said. “I was really ticked-off from doubles. And it definitely fired me up for singles.”

Badgers’ top seed Katie McGaffigan (No. 53), though losing her fifth straight match, put up a relatively formidable fight against the No. 1 player in the nation, Northwestern’s Audra Cohen, 6-3, 6-3. The contest marked a notable improvement over her January meeting with Cohen, when McGaffigan failed to claim a single game in a 6-0, 6-0 defeat.

Coming off of a major upset over New Mexico that helped propel the Badgers forward 12 seeds in the national rankings, from 48 to 36, Wisconsin’s post-game sentiment is that of a team quickly gaining confidence and improving across the board.

“I think we’ll take away that we showed that we’re with one of the top teams in the nation and that we definitely can compete well,” Nusslock said. “And that just little things here and there could have changed the outcome. And, you know, it will just give us confidence.”

“It was a good match for all of us because we all did better than what we did last time against them,” Beck said. “We’re just going to build from this. We’re just going to get stronger from it.”