IU senior Kim Schmider and sophomore Madison Appel dropped to No. 39 in the NCAA women’s tennis doubles pair rankings Tuesday, two weeks after knocking off the No. 1 pair in the country.
The duo of Appel and Schmider beat a pair of ranked doubles teams two weekends ago and moved to No. 19, but a loss this weekend knocked them down in the list of the top 80 pairs in the nation.
Schmider was slowed by an undisclosed illness immediately after her and Appel’s big weekend. They were unable to play together in the Hoosiers’ dual match against DePaul and IUPUI in late February.
Last weekend, Schmider and Appel were back together in their first match as the No. 19-ranked doubles team. In their first match against Christina Jordan and Kaja Mrgole from West Virginia, the Hoosiers went down 4-0 to begin.
They battled back to knot the score at four but didn’t have enough in the tank and lost the match 6-4. Schmider and Appel bounced back in their second match of the day against Xiwei Cai and Ana Sofia Cordero from Southern Illinois-Carbondale with a 6-1 victory.
Due to their loss to WVU, they fell to No. 39, but the duo is still 22-3 on the season and will have more opportunities to take on some higher ranked pairs as the season goes into Big Ten play.
Schmider and Appel, along with the rest of the team, will be in action again this Saturday in their first Big Ten match against Iowa.
Dylan Wallace
