DeKalb Times

Northern Illinois University issued the following announcement on Jan. 27

Now in his third season as the head coach of the Northern Illinois University women's tennis program, Eric Burns leads the Huskies into the 2022 spring dual match schedule beginning Saturday optimistic about the direction of the program and excited to see the continued development of the players on the roster.

After a one-week delay in starting the spring schedule due to COVID-19 protocols, NIU welcomes Wisconsin and Bradley to Chick Evans Fieldhouse on Saturday to open the spring slate. The NIU-Wisconsin match begins at 9 a.m. with the Huskies facing Bradley at 6 p.m. later that evening.  Saturday begins an aggressive schedule of 29 dual matches for the young Huskies.

"We play one of the bigger schedules in Division I tennis," Burns said. "It's a very strong schedule. We have Notre Dame, we have Wisconsin coming here, which is a huge, huge deal for us to get to host a Big 10 team. DePaul (Feb. 13) is coming here, we'll play Marquette (Feb. 11) at home, so there are a lot of good opportunities and really good home matches for us. We are a player development program and I believe you get better by playing tons and tons of matches and getting as much experience as you can."

NIU opens Mid-American Conference dual match play on Sunday, March 20 with MAC home matches to be played at the Rockford Boylan Tennis Courts (indoor) or at DeKalb High School (outdoor). Non-conference matches will be played at Chick Evans Fieldhouse on campus and are open to the public. While the schedule includes both Division I and non-Division I opponents, Burns said every match is important

"I have the mentality that every match is important regardless of the opponent." Burns said. "You have to treat every match as important; you have to respect every opponent you play and know that they're going to bring their best every time you play. Obviously, we're playing to do well in our conference, but there are a lot of other matches we'd like to do well in too. Really we want them all at the end of the day."

A year ago, NIU entered the spring schedule without benefit of the fall tournament play, while in Burns' first season with the Huskies, the spring season was cut short due to the COVID-19 shutdown. With freshmen and sophomores accounting for six of the 10 players on the 2021-22 roster, playing a fall schedule was extremely important to NIU's development entering the dual match schedule this year.  

"Having a fall season allowed us to see where everyone is in terms of their development whereas last year, we were learning about it in real time [during dual matches]," Burns said. "The fall not only gave us a chance to see the freshmen and see how they handle match situations, it also allowed us to see how the returnees progressed throughout the summer, and where they might fit [in the line-up]. The new players have been great. We're probably going to start this weekend with two sophomores, three freshmen and probably a senior in singles, so it's a very young lineup, but a very talented lineup and one that if you look two to three years down the road, could be very special."

Two freshmen and two sophomores look to start the season in the top four spots in NIU's singles line-up, starting with sophomore Diana Lukyanova, who posted a 20-7 record while playing primarily at No. 3 singles a year ago, while fellow sophomore Anastasia Rakita went 11-12 last spring at No. 2 singles. They are joined in the top four by freshmen Erika Dimitriev and Reagan Welch.

"We've got four players at the top that are almost interchangeable on any given day," Burns said. "Diana Lukyanova has come back strong after a very good fall so she's right up there at the top. Erika Dimitriev has big tools, big weapons to be able to play toward the top of the lineup. She's still trying to put it together consistently but has a huge upside. Anastasia Rakita, who played No. 2 for us last year, is back and she's definitely one of our best players. Reagan Welch is a freshman who really put in a lot of work between the time she committed here until now and really grew her game. She's a player that's getting better with every practice. So you've got a really solid top four right there."

Just outside the top four, freshman Angelica Ross and senior Christy Robinson look to fill the last two singles spots, with seniors Fernanda Naves and Iuliia Dmitrieva in the mix as well, while also forming one of the Huskies top doubles teams.

"We've got Fernanda and Iuliia playing together in doubles which allows us to play a lot of different people," Burns said. "We feel pretty good about where we're at with the doubles right now in our lineup. It's always nice to get the doubles teams together in the fall and let them play a lot of matches together because familiarity is really important, being able to communicate and getting to know each other's games."

Without a fall schedule, NIU posted a 14-14 record in dual matches a year ago and were 10-5 at home with a 6-7 record in the MAC. With as many as three new players in the singles line-up, Burns said taking steps forward this season may not necessarily show up in the win column but in the quality of play and competitiveness of matches.

"We're working on continual improvement of our program," Burns said. "We've been making positive steps each year and building the depth of this program. We feel that this is a much better team on paper. A lot of our success will come down to how quickly we can get experience and continue to improve. I think we have a good team; they've been really easy to work, they're very coachable and I feel really good about the season."

Live scoring will be available for many of the Huskies' matches in 2022. Find the links on the women's tennis schedule page of NIUHuskies.com or on the NIU Huskies app.  

Original source can be found here.