Feb. 22, 2001

The Fighting Illini women's tennis squad takes its show on the road Saturday and Sunday as it opens the 2001 Big Ten dual-match season at Michigan and Michigan State, respectively.

Illinois is 5-2 on the season, with its only losses to Tennessee and North Carolina, two Top-25 teams. The Illini are approaching Top-25 status themselves, they moved up from No. 27 to 26 in this week's ITA national poll.

Freshman Jennifer McGaffigan leads the Orange and Blue with a 20-8 record, and senior Simone Kung is close behind at 19-9. Meanwhile, freshman Tiffany Eklov has been on a bit of a hot streak, having won all five of her singles matches in dual-match competition.

On the doubles side, Coach Sujay Lama is still tinkering with the lineups. Although nothing is set in stone, he is pleased with his current group. "Carla (Rosenberg) and Simone (Kung) have been dominating lately--they will play at No. 1. Eldina (Fazlic) and Michelle (Webb) will go at No. 2, and Jenny (McGaffigan) and Eva (Choe) will play at No. 3 this weekend. I feel very confident with these teams."

Michigan leads, 16-8, in the all-time series between the two schools. The Wolverines had beaten Illinois six times in a row before Lama took the reins of the Illini program. Lama is 2-0 against the Wolverines, his teams having won, 7-0, at the Atkins Tennis Center in 1999 and 5-2 last spring at the UM Varsity Tennis Center.

Michigan brings a 3-2 mark into Saturday's 10 a.m. (CST) contest. The Wolverines started off the season with a pair of 7-0 victories against Bowling Green and (at) Yale. They then hosted and defeated DePaul, 4-3, before taking a swing into SEC country that was not kind to them. Kentucky shut out Michigan, 7-0, Feb. 9, and most recently, Tennessee blanked the Wolverines, 4-0, Feb. 11. The Maize and Blue will have had 12 days since that match when they host the Orange and Blue. Illinois will face a couple of ranked singles players, freshmen Chrissie Nolan (60) and Kavitha Tipirneni (62) when they take on the Wolverines.

The Fighting Illini are on a roll against the Spartans. They lead in the all-time series with Michigan State, 17-9. Illinois' 7-0 victory a year ago was its ninth in a row vs. MSU.

Michigan State, like Michigan, will have had more than a week off between its last match and this weekend's contests. The 3-4 Spartans beat Toledo, 6-1, in their inaugural match, and won a forfeit victory over Western Michigan (due to illness on the WMU team), their only common opponent with Illinois. MSU stumbled twice in a row with 6-1 home losses against DePaul and Eastern Michigan, but rebounded with a 4-3 victory against Bowling Green. Most recently, the Spartans fell to Miami of Ohio, 5-2, and to Ball State, 6-1. No. 11 Northwestern, Illinois' travel partner, will precede the Illini into East Lansing Saturday.

The Spartans are led by freshman Trine Lise Juliussen, who has a 5-2 record at No. 4 singles.

"We are looking forward to starting the Big Ten Conference season," said Lama. "The schedule we have played so far has been geared to getting us ready for it. I'm very excited for our players, because if we continue to prepare like we have for the past two weeks, and if we do what we are capable of doing, we should have a great season."

Lama doesn't expect any "gimmes," however. "The Big Ten is wide open this year," he continued. "There's more parity in the league than there used to be, five teams have a shot of winning the championship, and I certainly think that we are one of them."