The Milwaukee women's tennis team continues non-conference dual action this weekend with a pair of contests, hosting Gustavus Adolphus and Eastern Illinois this weekend at River Glen Elite.
 
The Panthers and Gusties get things started Saturday, while the weekend wraps up with the match against the EIU Panther Sunday. Start time is scheduled for 1 p.m. for both matches. Following a pair of tough losses in which the final score was not indicative of how the play went, MKE is looking to get back on track this weekend.
 
River Glen Elite, the home of MKE Tennis, is located at 2001 Good Hope Road in Milwaukee (53209), a half-mile west of I-43 between River Hills and Glendale. Admission is free.
 
SCOUTING THE OPPONENTS
Gustavus Adolphus, an NCAA Division III team located in Saint Peter, Minnesota. The team has just one match under its belt this spring, topping Warner in an exhibition in Florida by a final score of 7-0. Head coach Jon Carlson serves double-duty as the school's swim coach, positions he has held for over 30 years (654-227 in tennis). The Gusties will see a completely new lineup with the loss of last year's Nos. 1, 2, 4, and 6 singles players. Coming off its 30th MIAC championship all-time last year, the team graduated seven seniors. Saturday's action will be the first in the all-time series between the two.
 
Eastern Illinois is 1-3 and will also have a busy weekend, taking on Olivet Nazarene and St. Francis (Ill.) Saturday before heading to Wisconsin. EIU was selected to finish third in this year's Ohio Valley Conference preseason poll and had two players selected to the preseason All-OVC players to watch list in Elizaveta Bukraba-Ulanova and Christine Gouws. Bukraba-Ulanova was an All-OVC selection two seasons ago and last year played primarily at No. 2 singles posting eight wins.  Gouws had six wins in singles play and posted seven wins in doubles play competing at both the No. 1 and No. 2 doubles positions. EIU returns seven players from last season's squad that finished 4-18 overall (1-6 in league). MKE is 2-6 all-time against Eastern Illinois, but has won each of the past two, claiming a 4-3 win on the road last year and a 6-1 decision at home in March of 2021.
 
LAST WEEK
The Panthers went 0-2, suffering hard-fought losses at the hands of Wisconsin and Illinois State. The team was unable to break through against the Badgers, dropping a 7-0 match to the No. 25 team in the country despite several strong performances in both doubles and singles action. The team was in very good shape against UW well into the middle of doubles play, only to see their nationally-ranked opponents close out the matches strong to pick up the important point to open the match. MKE then gave Illinois State all it could handle, falling 5-2 to the two-time defending Missouri Valley Conference regular-season champions.
 
Milwaukee dropped a heartbreaking point in doubles play to start the contest against the Redbirds, winning at No. 2 while falling in each of the other flights in tie-breaker fashion. Singles was just as thrilling, led by Babette Burgersdijk and her 6-3, 6-1 victory over two-time MVC All-Conference selection and 2021 MVC Player of the Year, Tijana Zlatanovic. Nadiia Konieva also picked up a victory at No. 4, setting up the deciding points to come from the No. 5 and No. 6 singles matches.
 
QUICK PREVIEW
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.
 
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 25-12 over the past four-plus years (2-1 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 hit the road for a challenging trip, making stops at Omaha Saturday (4 p.m. start) and Creighton Sunday (9:30 a.m. start).