The Midwest Conference released its 2022 Men's Tennis Preseason Coaches Poll on Thursday and Lake Forest College was second in the rankings.
Voting is done by the MWC head men's tennis coaches. Each coach votes for the other six schools in the league in order of predicted finish. Points are assigned in reverse order of voting (six points for first, five for second, etc.). Coaches may not vote for their own teams.
With 31 points, the Foresters trailed only defending conference champion Grinnell College (36) in the poll. Grinnell received six of the seven first-place votes and Lake Forest the other.
Junior Oleksyi Vyshyvanyuk is the Foresters' top returning player from last year. He posted a perfect 8-0 record at #1 singles and was 6-3 at the top of the doubles lineup. Vyshyvanyuk finished the season as the 19th-ranked singles player in the Central Region.
The Foresters won their only dual match of the fall and will open the spring at Carthage College on Saturday. Under second-year head coach Scot Reinhart, the team will begin league play at Cornell College and Grinnell on April 2 and will complete its six-match conference schedule on April 16. The top four teams in the standings will compete in the MWC Tournament at Hitters SportsPlex in Middleton, Wisconsin, on April 29 and the MWC Individual Tournaments will be played the next two days at the same location.
Lake Forest was 6-3 overall and 5-0 in MWC North Division play last year. The team qualifyed for its sixth consecutive MWC Tournament and played in the championship match for the fifth time during that span.
| PLACE | TEAM (First Place Votes) | POINTS |
| 1 | Grinnell College (6) | 36 |
| 2 | Lake Forest College (1) | 31 |
| 3 | Cornell College | 23 |
| 4 | Lawrence University | 22 |
| 5 | Ripon College | 14 |
| 6 | Monmouth College | 12 |
| 7 | Illinois College | 9 |