Off to a 2-0 start for the first time since the 2010-11 season, the Milwaukee women's tennis team sets its sights on the state of Ohio for two matches this weekend. Up first, a stop near Oxford Saturday to take on Miami (OH), followed by a Sunday match at Dayton.
 
The Panthers and Redhawks will get underway Saturday at 3 p.m. CST, playing at the team's indoor facility – the Riverside Athletic Club – in nearby Hamilton, Ohio. It's a quick turnaround for the squad then, making the trek to the Dayton area for a 9 a.m. CST start against the Flyers. That matchup is set to take place at the South Regency Tennis Center in Miamisburg, Ohio.
 
Hopes are high this spring for the Panthers and first-year head coach Ryan Kucera, after the team claimed a best-ever runner-up finish at the Horizon League Championships last year. The squad fell to No. 2 Youngstown State in a heartbreaker of a championship match, 4-3, after knocking off top-seeded Cleveland State in the semifinal round.
 
Kucera comes to Milwaukee after two years at Minnesota State University, Mankato, earning Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference Coach of the Year honors last season following a very successful campaign on the courts. He led the Mavericks to a 16-10 record, which included an 8-3 ledger in NSIC play. In the process, he guided the program to the largest single-season turnaround in conference history, going from 11^th place to third place in just one year.
 
SCOUTING THE OPPONENTS
Miami (OH) is coming off a very successful year, claiming the Mid-American Conference regular-season title with an 8-2 record. The team finished 14-11 overall, with head coach Ricardo Rosas picking up MAC Coach of the Year honors for the third time in his career. The Redhawks are off to a 1-3 start to 2023, claiming a 5-2 win over Dayton in most recent action Jan. 22. The team will have a busy day Saturday, taking on Bellarmine at 9 a.m. CST before battling MKE in the afternoon.
 
Dayton went 9-13 overall last season, earning the five-seed at the 2022 Atlantic-10 Tournament, its highest seeding since 2002. The Flyers return sophomore Neena Katauskas for 2023, who posted a 7-3 record at No. 3 singles and partnered with junior Sarah DeMarco for a 6-4 mark at No. 3 doubles last season while sophomore Laura Greb went 7-1 at No. 4 singles in 2022. The Flyers are 0-1 so far in 2023 following the defeat at Miami (OH), and will also host Xavier Friday before wrapping the weekend with the Panthers Sunday.
 
LAST WEEK
The Panthers got off to a 2-0 start for the first time since the 2010-11 season after earning a pair of victories against Hillsdale last weekend. The Panthers topped the Chargers by a final score of 7-0 in the first dual of the day and then finished off the sweep by a final score of 4-0 in the second contest, with Anouk Ma-Ajong defeating Julia Wagner 6-4, 6-3, to wrap up the day. The decisions handed head coach Ryan Kucera his first official victories as a Panther. Nadiia Konieva led the way overall on the afternoon with three wins, going 2-0 in singles play and 1-0 in doubles.
 
ROSTER MAKEUP
The current MKE roster comes from an extensive background of seven different countries and will consist of a pair of Panther veteran returners in Anika Tylek and Iva Stejskalova, as well as second-year players Babette Burgersdijk and Giorgia Cavestro. Newcomers include Nadiia Konieva, Anouk Ma-Ajong, Alice Shields, and Sara Simonova.
 
Tylek is in her fourth season with the Panthers, having recorded 14 wins in singles and seven in doubles last year. Stejskalova is in her third year at MKE and posted a team-high 16 doubles victories last season as well as seven in singles play.
 
Milwaukee did lose a couple of key pieces to graduation, including Horizon League First-Team honoree Mayya Perova, who capped off her senior season with a career best 19-8 overall record in singles and tallied 15 more victories in doubles. Perova recorded a 10-match win streak during the season, while competing primarily from the No. 2 singles line (13-4) but also went 6-1 from the No. 1 position. She graduated as the winningest doubles player (win percentage) in program history at .722, going 70-27 in her career.
 
FALL FESTIVITES
This fall, Milwaukee competed in five different tournaments, visiting Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, and Michigan, in addition to an event in-state. Shields went 10-4 to pace the Panthers in singles victories during the fall slate, while Shields and Konieva both went 9-6 to top doubles action.
 
Milwaukee has been picked to finish sixth in the league this season in a poll of the league's coaches, despite that very strong finish to their campaign a year ago. The Panthers finished 3-3 last spring and went into the Horizon League Tournament as the No. 4 seed. Youngstown State was the selection to win the league crown.
 
HOME SWEET HOME
The Panthers have been stellar at home of late, going 25-11 over the past four-plus years (2-0 in 2023), including a 10-3 mark in 2021. Last season, MKE claimed victories in three of its final four home duals heading into the postseason.
 
UP NEXT
The Panthers battle in-state rival Wisconsin Thursday Feb. 2, before returning home to host Illinois State Feb. 4.