NIU men’s and women’s tennis will both hit the hard top this weekend.

The women’s team will travel south to Carbondale for matches against Arkansas State and Southern Illinois.

The Huskies (5-2) opened the season with a loss, but have turned their season around since then. They won three-straight matches over North Dakota, Bradley and Eastern Illinois.

The Huskies feel confident going into this weekend’s matches, said NIU sophomore Haley Dekkinga.

“It gives us a lot of confidence going in since we been doing really well since we are playing more like an team,” Dekkinga said. “But you can never under estimate one team any day.”

Ryun Ferrell, NIU women’s tennis coach, said he had a feeling from the start of the season that the team was going to win more games than last year.

“When we started the season, I thought we would be good, but just not sure how good we were going to be,” Ferrell said. “We have done some pretty neat things in the season, but still have to take a precaution attitude.”

NIU men’s tennis will be home this weekend to play matches against Dayton, Western Illinois and Cleveland State.

The Huskies (6-2), are riding a two-game win streak. The two wins came from Valparaiso and Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis).

The expectations are high for the men this weekend and for the rest of the season, said NIU coach Patrick Fisher.

“We expect to win all three matches this weekend,” Fisher said. “Our expectations are to win against ranked teams and win the MAC Conference Championship at the end of the year, and we think we can accomplish that this year.”