Women’s Tennis: Northwestern suffers tough sweep at ITA Championships, bounces back against Fordham

Northwestern women’s tennis underwent an up-and-down last two weeks. From Feb. 6-8, it competed at the 2026 ITA National Team Indoor Championships as one of the two host teams, the other being Illinois.

There, it suffered tough losses to No. 13 Auburn (0-4), No. 24 Oklahoma State (1-4) and No. 15 Virginia (1-4). The Wildcats remained in Evanston for their next competition on Feb. 15, where they dominated Fordham 7-0.

ITA Indoor Championships

Northwestern and Illinois both qualified for ITAs as hosts, with both teams being the lowest No. 8 seeds on their respective halves of the draw. There, they faced off against some of the best women’s college tennis teams in the nation.

The Wildcats were no match against their strongest opponent of the season, the top-seeded Auburn Tigers, in the opening round of the main draw. Auburn’s No. 1 team of Stefani Webb and DJ Bennett handily defeated Northwestern’s Mika Dagan Fructman and Neena Feldman 6-2, while the No. 3 Ashton Bowers and Ekaterina Khairutdinova beat NU’s Marelie Raath and Maia Loureiro with the same scoreline, earning the doubles point for the Tigers.

Auburn was equally as dominant in singles. No. 1 Bennett, the 26th-ranked women’s player in the nation, handed recently-minted NU No. 1 Margot Phanthala (ranked 43rd in ITA singles rankings) a 6-3, 6-4 defeat. No. 2 Khairutdinova and No. 5 Alice Battesti beat Northwestern’s Neena Feldman and Dagan Fruchtman, respectively, cementing a Tiger 4-0 sweep. In fact, Northwestern clinched just one set against Auburn — No. 3 Autumn Rabjohns’ 7-5 first set win over Angella Okutoyi in an unfinished match.

Northwestern then played No. 4-seeded Oklahoma State in the consolation bracket on Feb. 7, a duel where the hosts didn’t fare any better. The ‘Cats were once again swept in doubles, as Dagan Fruchtman and Feldman fell 6-3 to OSU’s No. 1 team of Anastasiya Komar and Rose Marie Nijkamp. Nijkamp, the No. 24-ranked player in the nation, was the highest-ranked player the ‘Cats faced all tournament. Following that, OSU’s No. 3 Lucia Peyre and Luca Udvardy handed Raath and Marelie a 6-1 loss.

The ‘Cats did earn their first point of the weekend in the singles portion against the Cowgirls — though in a bittersweet manner, as No. 6 Dagan Fruchtman went up on Marcela Lopez 6-0 before Lopez retired. Oklahoma State earned the other three singles points, highlighted by an upset 6-2, 6-1 win in the No. 1 spot by unranked Olivia Lincer over Phanthala. The No. 3 doubles pairings also met in singles rematches, with Udvardy defeating Raath and Peyre defeating Loureiro in straight sets. Oklahoma State finished with a 4-1 win.

Northwestern’s final duel of the weekend against No. 7-seeded Virginia resulted in the same 4-1 scoreline, capping off a 0-3 weekend. But the ‘Cats recorded their best win of the tournament against the Cavaliers, as Phanthala upset then-No. 34-ranked Vivian Yang 6-2, 6-3 in the top singles spot. With the win, the Wildcat freshman snapped a three-match losing streak and recorded her first singles victory against a power conference team since Nov. 15, 2025.

“I thought she played a lot more offensively [against Yang], and I was really pleased,” Northwestern head coach Claire Pollard said of Phanthala. “I think that’s something we’ll have her go back and watch repeatedly so that she can just differentiate when she was more aggressive. I felt like the first two matches [of the weekend], she got a little more passive.”

The Wildcats didn’t have much else to write home about against the Hoos, though. They won a combined one game across two doubles matches, and none against the UVA duo of Melodie Collard and Yang, the third-ranked doubles squad in the nation. In singles, Virginia’s Kaitlyn Rolls and Collard beat Dagan Fruchtman and Raath, respectively, before Annabelle Xu clinched the match with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Rabjohns.

vs. Fordham

A week later, Northwestern got redemption against a less-competitive Fordham squad, clinching all six singles points and a doubles point to break a four-match losing streak.

With Phanthala out due to an injury (and set to return next week), Rabjohns took her spot in the No. 1 singles spot and made good use of it, defeating Fordham’s Nevena Kolarevic 6-2, 6-1. But the most dominant win of the day came from Feldman, who handed Aya Matsunaga a 6-1, 6-1 match win in the No. 2 spot.

While Northwestern’s No. 1 and No. 2 singles players knocked out victories easily, the bottom four seeds played tighter matches. No. 5 Erica Jessel won her match 6-4, 6-4 while No. 4 Raath claimed a 6-4, 6-2 win, the latter player bouncing back from a tough weekend at the ITA Team Championships. There were also two three-setters played — one from No. 3 Loureiro, who came back after losing the first set 4-6 to defeat Paola Dalmonico 6-3, 6-2 in the final two to close out the match. No. 6 Dagan Fruchtman also fought back from down one set, clinching the NU sweep after an 11-9 third-set tiebreak win over Lily Chitambar.

Four of NU’s singles players also won doubles matches, as Feldman and Raath won 6-3 in the No. 2 spot over Chitambar and Valerija Kargina and Dagan Frutchman and Rabjohns beat Catalina Padilla and Dalmonico 6-4.

Northwestern will next face DePaul on Feb. 22 at Evanston’s Combe Tennis Center, the team’s last match before Big Ten play begins.