The Milwaukee women's tennis team opens April at home, welcoming Oakland Sunday afternoon to River Glen Elite for the opening match of the Horizon League campaign. The matchup against the Golden Grizzlies is the first of six consecutive conference battles to wrap up the regular-season schedule in preparation for the league championships at the end of the month. Action gets underway at 1 p.m.
 
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
Oakland is coming off a season in which it went 8-11 overall and 2-4 in Horizon League action. The team was picked to finish third in the Horizon League preseason poll. Head coach Heather Redshaw brings over two decades of experience to the program, having joined the Oakland athletic department in the summer of 2000.
 
The Golden Grizzlies are 4-8 this spring, with a 4-3 victory over Bowling Green March 18 snapping what was a three-match losing streak on the season. Liza Mladentseva leads the way with a 9-3 record, all coming at No. 1 singles.
 
Milwaukee is 11-5 all-time against Oakland and have won the past four, including a 4-3 victory over OU in the first round of the Horizon League Championships last spring. The series dates back to 1998 and MKE is 3-1 in that span in home matches.
 
HORIZON HISTORY
Milwaukee is 13-16 in Horizon League openers all-time, with a 6-1 win over IUPUI a year ago snapping what had been a three-match losing streak in conference openers. The team went 3-3 a year ago to finish in third place. The Panthers have claimed one regular-season Horizon League Championship in program history which came in 2013-14, going 7-1 that spring.

LAST WEEK
Milwaukee grabbed the doubles point to start the match but could not keep the same momentum going in singles action, falling by a final score of 4-3 to Valparaiso March 25.
 
The Panthers (6-9) nearly swept the Beacons (10-4) in doubles. Babette Burgersdijk and Sara Simonova knocked off Olivia Czerwonka and Moira Silva, Moira, 6-4, at No. 1, while Nadiia Konieva and Giorgia Cavestro took care of business at No. 2, claiming a 6-3 decision.
 
Iva Stejskalova and Alice Shields nearly helped MKE to the sweep, falling 7-5, at No. 3 doubles. Unfortunately, singles play fell a little flat in comparison for the Panthers overall.
 
SO FAR SO GOOD
The Panthers have six dual wins this season so far and some strong results to build on, including Nadiia Konieva and Giorgia Cavestro being named the Nike #HLTennis Women's Doubles Team of the Week March 8 and Babette Burgersdijk and Sara Simonova being named the Nike #HLTennis Women's Doubles Team of the Week Feb. 15. Overall in the spring dual season, Konieva leads the way with nine individual victories (9-4 record), while Alice Shields has eight (8-3). In doubles, Cavestro/Konieva lead the squad with seven wins (7-4), while Shields/Iva Stejskalova (6-3) have six.
 
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 11th 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.

HOME SWEET HOME
The Panthers have been stellar at home of late, going 29-13 over the past four-plus years (6-2 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 pair of conference contests, traveling to Cleveland State Friday and Youngstown State Saturday. Action Friday against the Vikings is set for a 1 p.m. CST start.