The Big Ten Conference will be well-represented at the NCAA Tennis Championships with six women’s teams and five from the men making the cut.
The contingent from the Big Ten includes some of the top-ranked teams in the country. On the men’s side, Ohio State – a finalist at last year’ event -- is the No. 4 seed, followed by No. 13 Illinois, 17-32 alpha seeded Michigan and Wisconsin, and Minnesota (33-48).
The women’s Big Ten field is even stronger with two teams seeded in the top 10 -- No. 4 Michigan and No. 6 seeded Northwestern. Rounding out the women are 17-32 seeded Illinois and Iowa, and 33-48 Ohio State and Indiana.
Unfortunately, there won’t be eleven Big Ten teams advancing to the round of 16 at the University of Georgia as some teams will have to repeat matches from the last few weeks and play each other. The full schedule of Big Ten teams for the first rounds on Friday, May 14th are as follows. Winners of round one play each other on Saturday to decide who advances to the final rounds the following week.
Men-
At Ohio State University:
Ohio State (4) vs. Western Michigan
Michigan (17-32) vs. Denver
At the University of Illinois:
Illinois (13) vs. Xavier
Wisconsin (17-32) vs. Notre Dame
At the University of Texas:
Minnesota vs. Arizona (17-32)
UTSA vs. Texas (3)
The full men’s draw is here.
Women-
At the University of Michigan:
Michigan (4) vs. Illinois-Chicago
DePaul vs. Ohio State
At Notre Dame University:
Notre Dame vs. IPFW
Iowa vs. Boise State
At Northwestern University
Nebraska vs. Illinois
Miami (OH) vs. Northwestern
The full women’s draw is here.
So, are there any surprises here? I expected to see the Purdue women in the mix. Even though the second half of the season wasn’t as good as the first for them, they did have a win over Ohio State. I can’t say there was anything unexpected within the Big Ten men, though it’s a bit disappointing to see the possibility of Ohio State and Illinois once again playing each other so early as they did in 2007 (Illinois won) and 2008 (Ohio State won), when the teams have just played each other already twice in the last few weeks.
If you happen to live near any of these events, I strongly recommend attending. There’s nothing better than a college tennis match and there’s going to be some great competition out there. I will be at the men’s event at the University of Illinois, watching the Illini, Xavier, Wisconsin and Notre Dame. It would have been nice if -- as in previous years -- there were matches on Sunday so I could also get to a second site.
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