Two months ago, the Wisconsin women’s tennis team destroyed Penn State. The Badgers dominated the Nittany Lions, winning six of seven matches. UW dropped two sets all day. Senior Vanessa Rauh, UW’s No. 1 singles player, defeated Rebecca Ho 6-2, 6-3. It was Rauh’s most lopsided victory of the Big Ten season.
Two weeks ago, Wisconsin fell to Indiana in heartbreaking fashion. The Hoosiers won 4-3, a score that included a three-set victory over UW in the day’s final, deciding match. Rauh lost to Amanda Field 6-2, 6-3. It was Rauh’s most lopsided defeat of the Big Ten season.
The rub is that after Indiana and Penn State square off in the first round of this weekend’s Big Ten tournament ? which will take place in Bloomington, Ind. ? the winner will advance to play UW in the second round (the Badgers’ No. 2 seed earned them a first-round bye). And barring radical roster realignment, Rauh will face either the player she most easily handled or the player who most easily handled her. She’s not saying whom she’d rather see.
“Playing Indiana would give me another shot at Field,” Rauh said after Tuesday’s practice. “And I know [Ho] is a good player. I’ve lost to her in the past as well. I mean, I’ve played both of them, I’ve lost to both of them [in the past].”
Of the 11 teams entering the tournament, UW’s fortune appears to be the hardest to predict. The Badgers won their first five conference meets. Then they went just 2-3 in their final five Big Ten meets, eventually finishing tied with Ohio State at 7-3 (UW garnered the No. 2 seed by virtue of its Feb. 23 dual-meet victory over the Buckeyes.). It is an undesirable record, especially given that a few points could have altered UW’s record radically: the Badgers’ final five meets all ended in a 4-3 score.
Rauh has epitomized UW’s difficulty in pulling out close meets. Six of Rauh’s 10 Big Ten matches went the distance, including her last four. She’s lost her last three straight, and overall she lost four of the six three-setters. If any Badger could use an easy match on Friday, it’s Rauh.
“If I’m not playing well, and it’s a close match, it doesn’t affect me as much,” Rauh said. “Because I’m so fixated on my game, I’m just like, ‘I played like crap.’ The ones that are harder for me are the ones where I’m playing well.”
Asked for an assessment of her play down the stretch, Rauh responded: “My last two matches were just heartbreakers.”
There is another question mark going into the tournament concerning Rauh: Whether or not UW’s head coach, Patti Henderson, will insert her as a doubles player. All season Teresa Gonzaga had teamed up with Katie Dougherty as one of UW’s three doubles combinations. Against Iowa Sunday, however, Henderson replaced Gonzaga with Rauh and slotted Rauh-Dougherty at No. 3 doubles (Gonzaga and Dougherty had played No. 2 doubles for 18 of their 19 matches together).
After not playing together since spring of 2001, Rauh and Dougherty ? whom Rauh names as her “dream doubles partner” ? defeated the Iowa team 8-5 in an eight-game pro-set (in other words, one set only, first team to eight wins). What’s more, UW’s usual No. 3 duo of Lindsay Martin and Katie McGaffigan ran away with an 8-1 win at No. 2 doubles.
After practice Tuesday, Henderson couldn’t say whether Dougherty and Rauh would play together in Bloomington. As for Rauh, she said she hadn’t heard anything final from the coaches, but she bluntly stated her hopes for the weekend.
“The most fun I’ve ever had playing doubles was with Katie,” Rauh said. “I’d love to play with her again.”
