The No. 51 women's tennis team (0-1 Big Ten, 3-5 overall) battles illness and tunes individual tactics as it prepares to face No. 20 Brigham Young University (0-0 Mountain West, 6-3) Friday evening at home.
Last weekend's 5-1 loss at Northwestern, where freshman singles player Elizabeth Carpenter won the only UW point, has the Badgers aggressively searching for more doubles wins.
'We've switched the doubles up this year,' said No. 28 junior Caitlin Burke, who played with Carpenter early on when junior Nicole Beck was sick.
'We just recently switched it, and Nicole and I have had a really good fall season together, so hopefully we can keep that up in the spring.'
However, BYU's doubles are very solid as the team has not lost one doubles point this season.
The Badgers got a taste of the Cougars' capabilities in early February when Madison hosted the International Tennis Association National Team Indoor Championships. Though they have never played each other, the Cougars are familiar with the environment of the Badgers' courts in a way that may work to their advantage this weekend.
Last year's duel in Utah was in favor of BYU with a score of 6-1.
'It's tough playing any school in a high altitude like that,' said head coach Patti Henderson. 'The ball changes drastically at high altitudes. We did not perform there the way we did the rest of the year. We'll be more prepared in that regard.'
According to Henderson, BYU is at least one person better than they were last year , so Friday will be a battle.
BYU is the obvious favorite in this match, but throughout the season the Badgers have been stepping up and holding their own against top players. Although she said 'every match is tough for [her] playing number one singles.' Burke will step up to play BYU's No. 17 Olga Boulytcheva, who was recently named Player of the Week for the Mountain West Conference.
'As long as we keep improving from our experiences in the previous matches, then I think we're going to have opportunities we can capitalize on,' Henderson said.
However, illness may prohibit the team from advancing all of their goals. This weekend does not look so promising for sophomore Chelsea Nusslock, who was out sick for Northwestern and attended her first practice of the week on Wednesday.
The lineup from the Northwestern game will most likely hold for Friday.
