The Midwest Conference released its 2018 Women's Tennis Preseason Coaches Poll on Monday and Lake Forest College was second in the rankings.
Voting is done by the MWC head women's tennis coaches. Each coach votes for the other nine schools in the league in order of predicted finish. Points are assigned in reverse order of voting (nine points for first, eight for second, etc.). Coaches may not vote for their own teams.
Lake Forest, the league's runner-up in the regular season and MWC Tournament a year ago, trail only defending champion Grinnell College in the poll and received two of the 10 first-place votes. St. Norbert College and Cornell College were listed third and fourth, respectively. Those schools have made up the four-team MWC Tournament field each of the last four seasons.
The Foresters' entire lineup from last spring will be back this year, including four players who won conference titles at the 2017 MWC Individual Tournaments. Allison Watts enters her senior season as the defending champion at #2 singles and ranked third in program history with 117 career victories in singles and doubles combined. Sophomore Grace Gould's 26 singles wins in 2017-18 tied the team record and she captured a title at #5. Sophomore Julie Lord set a school record with 21 victories at #1 doubles, including 18 with junior Leeza Bodnar. They proved to be the best tandem in the league last fall, claiming a championship at the top of the lineup.
Under third-year head coach Raquel Allen, Lake Forest will open the season by taking on three different opponents at the Quad on Clay, hosted by Milwaukee School of Engineering on Saturday, September 1. The Foresters will take on each of the other nine schools in the league and compete in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Regional Tournament during the fall. They will also close out the 2018 portion of the schedule at the MWC Individual Tournaments October 13-14 at the Nielsen Tennis Center in Madison, Wisconsin.
The top four teams in the conference will qualify for the MWC Team Tournament, which will be also played in Madison, Wisconsin, on April 25. The Foresters have qualified for the event each of the last nine seasons and have been the runners-up five times in that span.
| PLACE | TEAM (First Place Votes) | POINTS |
| 1 | Grinnell College (8) | 80 |
| 2 | Lake Forest College (2) | 74 |
| 3 | St. Norbert College | 62 |
| 4 | Cornell College | 60 |
| 5 | Lawrence University | 46 |
| 6 | Knox College | 35 |
| 7 | Monmouth College | 30 |
| 8 | Illinois College | 27 |
| 9 | Ripon College | 26 |
| 10 | Beloit College | 10 |