Following a two-week sabbatical, the No. 34 Wisconsin women’s tennis team will return to the court Saturday, where they hope to exorcise the DePaul Blue Demons. For the Badgers, it will be the first home stand since Feb. 16, when they shut out Marquette.
“We’re going to have to come out. We’re going to have to be ready play and we have to be ready to fight hard,” head coach Patti Henderson said. “Because they’re going to make us work hard, they’re going to make us hit a lot of different balls, and it’s not going to be an easy match by any means.”
The Badgers come into Saturday having last played Feb. 25 and 26 during a two-prong trip to the Rocky Mountains. The western voyage’s first contest proved sour for Wisconsin, as Brigham Young University prevailed 6-1. But with an extra day to adjust to the altitude, the Badgers came back strong during the trip’s second leg, taming the Colorado State Rams 7-0 with all but one point coming from straight set victories.
“At least we ended with a good note against Colorado State,” Henderson said. “Both [assistant coach Erin Boisclair] and I were kind of in shock during our match with BYU.”
In DePaul, the Badgers face a largely unfamiliar non-conference team that enters Madison high on a nine-game winning streak during which the Blue Demons have never ceded more than a single point. The squad last lost Feb. 6 when they fell to then-unranked Yale 5-2 in New Haven, Conn.
“I don’t know too much about the DePaul team, but we just have to come out ready,” senior Katie McGaffigan said. “Everybody’s going to have to fight hard to get this match, I think. Especially with the long break, we just kind of have to come out and be mentally prepared for anything.”
The Blue Demons bring a team comprised almost entirely of foreign players to Madison, with athletes hailing from Croatia, Serbia, Hungary and Bulgaria, among other locales.
“They’re an international team. They might have one American in their top six,” Henderson said, adding of head coach Mark Ardizzone’s squad, “but he’s got some very, very good players.”
The Badgers, conversely, feature an entirely American squad, with all but one of their expected starters coming from the Midwest and three players calling Wisconsin home. Redshirt freshman Nicole Beck and sophomore Madison Sellers are the team’s only non-regional entries, coming from Lawrenceville, Ga., and Pacific Palisades, Cal., respectively.
Still, the Badgers are no strangers to foreign competition, having faced numerous international players throughout the course of their spring season. Despite suffering a handful of losses, the entirely American team has steadily risen through the ranks, graduating this week to the No. 34 position.
Having started the spring season at No. 48, a notable victory over then-No. 24 New Mexico and several hard-fought matches against various teams, including then-No. 5 Northwestern, have elevated the Wisconsin squad steadily.
For Badger players, though, things have proven more sporadic. Top seed Katie McGaffigan reentered the rankings this week at No. 77, having started the season at No. 53 before sliding entirely out of the poll for a two-week period.
“First and foremost, the team situation is what we’re striving for,” Henderson said. “And obviously where we are now is a good sign. Where we are in the first week of June when the final rankings come out is the ultimate. And we’d like to be in the top 25 this year.”
Of the polls’ seeming unpredictability, she added, “Nothing surprises me with rankings. You can’t always figure them out.”
DePaul, conversely, enters this weekend unranked both as a team and across the board individually.
The match will begin at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Nielson Tennis Stadium in Madison.
