Caitlin Burke never lost a single set of play in high school tennis, going a perfect 108-0 out of Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Nicole Beck never played high school tennis, instead working the professional satellite circuit out of Lawrenceville, Georgia.

Burke is a southpaw firing forehand shots from the left side of the court. Beck, a righty, has used a traditional forehand to keep pace in some of her most hotly contested points this season. Badger women’s tennis head coach Patti Henderson describes the two young women’s personalities as “completely opposite.”

“Caitlin Burke is much more gregarious … She talks, not loud, but gregarious,” Henderson said. “Nicole Beck, on the other hand, is much more reserved on the court and in her speaking.”

Yet opposites seem to attract for Burke and Beck, working together out of the second doubles flight this season for the Badgers. The only Wisconsin duo to claim a match against a highly ranked New Mexico team at last week’s USTA/ITA National Women’s Team Indoor Championship, Beck and Burke started their season with a quick 8-1 victory over Northern Illinois and followed up with an 8-3 win against Colorado before joining the Badgers’ other two doubles teams in falling to Vanderbilt and Harvard.

The pair gave Wisconsin its only tangible momentum coming out of a lost doubles point against the Lobos, having claimed their match 8-2. And they challenged their underdog status Sunday, going up 2-0 on a powerful Northwestern team before forcing a tiebreak, 7-8(5).

What the young women have in common are stellar first serves and intense volley play.

“We both have big serves,” Beck said. “And we both have pretty good hands at the net.”

While their personalities may be contradictory, the tandem has become a cohesive unit on the court.

“Their game styles are very complimentary of each other,” Henderson said. “Both of them can serve.”

But Beck and Burke are also comparatively young, both academic sophomores with Beck having spent last year as a medical redshirt. And this means that both ladies look toward improving during their tenure on the Badgers’ squad.

“I think improving is a big thing for me,” Burke said. “I want to continue to improve every year, and come out stronger every year.”

For Beck, the objectives are more explicitly stated.

“I’ll be a fifth-year senior,” she says. “I’d like to be ranked in both singles and doubles.”

Academically, the two young women tell the same story of opposites and similarities. Beck, after a brief stint with mechanical engineering, is a declared graphic design major, having already had some of her work publicly featured.

“I went into the graphic design program, and it’s where I should be,” she says.

Burke is as-yet undeclared, but plans on finding a line of study that involves human contact.

“I’m not sure [of my major] yet,” Burke said. “I like something with people. Kids, maybe. I don’t know if I want to be a teacher.”

But both young women, despite their differing academic pursuits, speak to the difficulties of being a student athlete.

“It’s extremely hard,” Beck says. “But it’s doable.”

Burke points specifically to the rigors of away matches.

“Class is really tough, especially if you’re traveling a lot,” she said. “We’re really lucky this year that we’re home so much.”

With Burke hailing from just north of Milwaukee, and Beck coming from some 890 miles away, the two young women arrived in Madison via different routes, both literally and figuratively.

Burke originally had her eyes set outside of Wisconsin, but following a strong family allegiance to the city of Madison, she ventured down I-94.

“I decided to take a trip here, and I just loved it,” she said.

For Beck, the Midwestern tour stop came only after a pre-collegiate venture up the East Coast.

“I actually just came from Maryland, where the sniper shootings were going on. So it was a relief to just get out of there,” she said half-jokingly. “And it turned out that [Madison] was a great college town. The team was so much fun.”

It seems to have worked out well for both Beck and Burke that their tennis careers have collided at UW. Frequently sharing high-fives between points both won and lost, and having established a doubles serve that is exceedingly difficult to break, the two young women are a serious presence on the tennis court.

But not all is so serious off the court. When challenged to produce a fact that most people wouldn’t know about her, Burke shared her plans to go skydiving this summer with teammate Katie McGaffigan. Beck, on the other hand, alludes to her large feet.

“I have really big feet; I have like size 13 in women’s shoes,” Beck said, laughing with a grin her opponents will be hard-pressed to ever find on the court.