As their season comes to a close, the No. 6-seeded Trojans are in the countdown to 6 p.m. when they will be playing No. 11-seeded Michigan State in the first round of the Big Ten Championships. The matches are hosted by the Ojai Valley Tennis Club at Libbey Park in Ojai, California. 

After an efficient 4-0 sweep against the Spartans (13-11, 5-8 Big Ten) earlier this season, the Trojans (15-6, 9-4) have high aspirations for this match, especially because of the seeding implications for the NCAA Championships, with the winner of each conference tournament automatically qualifying. 

However, the road to victory throughout the tournament won’t be easy. USC could potentially face four Big Ten teams that it has lost to this season, including No. 1 seed Michigan (22-3, 13-0), the defending Big Ten champions who are ranked No. 3 nationally. 

Thankfully, the Trojans have the No. 10-ranked doubles pairing of sophomore Lily Fairclough and senior Grace Piper on their side. The two have a 22-6 overall record after just having played one full season together.

“[Me and Lily] started out in the fall playing together for the first time and had a really successful season, but we knew that there were definitely areas to work on,” said Piper in an interview with the Daily Trojan. “We spent a lot of time sitting down together and going through film, just seeing where we can clean up, which points [we were] losing typically, [and] where the improvement going to be … Having that open communication has really helped us to stay tough in those hard moments and improve as a pair.”

Fairclough and Piper steamrolled Michigan State’s pairing of senior Liisa Vehviläinen and redshirt sophomore Oriana Parkins-Godwin, 6-0, during their match on March 22 and hope to bring that energy and focus to the court in the first round. Similarly, sophomore Immi Haddad, who beat junior Matilde Morais in their singles matchup 6-1, 6-3, hopes to take that momentum into the Big Ten Championships. 

“A lot of what we worked on has been very attitude-based, like a lot of body language and self-talk work and how we present ourselves on a tennis court,” Haddad said. “That has really shown up in my matches and allowed me to be more positive, especially when the score gets a bit closer and certain situations become a bit tougher, just maintaining that good body language and attitude is so important.”

Going into the postseason, the team has three ranked singles players, including No. 58 junior Emma Charney, No. 71 Piper and No. 103 Haddad, as well as their one ranked doubles duo, Fairclough and Piper.

“Every single player on our team has been on a trajectory of improvement that’s personal to them and what where they could take their game,” said Head Coach Alison Swain in an interview with the Daily Trojan. “When you combine all those things … it just means that we’re playing a little bit better at every single spot right now than we were a month ago or six weeks ago, and that’s a great place to be going into the postseason.”

More importantly, the team boasts great camaraderie and effective communication, in addition to their strong play, which has earned them a strong No. 16 national ranking, according to Swain. They hope they can push themselves through to the NCAA Championships.

“This team is really close,” Swain said. “They love to play for SC and each other and they’ve really been open to developing both mindset and their tennis this season. And I think that’s going to show up this week.”

The Trojans will take the court against Michigan State later today at 6 p.m. in Ojai, California, to start their bid to become Big Ten Champions.