The weather wasn’t the only thing that changed from Friday to Sunday at the Nielsen Tennis Stadium.
Friday, the Wisconsin Badgers men’s tennis team was swept by No. 2 Ohio State. However, lineup changes and confidence boosts led UW to a victory Sunday against Penn State.
Head coach Greg Van Emburgh was proud of the way his team recovered.
“I think we really fought hard today and played with a lot of confidence,” Van Emburgh said. “We were down a couple of matches in the singles and fought back. We played really strong today, which was good after a tough loss against Ohio State on Friday.”
To prepare for Sunday’s matchup against Penn State, changes had to be made, and Van Emburgh was aware of where to make them.
Freshman Alexander Teppert replaced Petr Satral in doubles play at the No. 3 spot, and the freshman duo of Rodney Carey and Fredrik Ask was moved to the No. 2 spot.
Against Ohio State, Carey and Ask were full of tiebreaking matches. The duo lasted the longest and finished last in doubles play after losing in a tiebreak. Moving to singles, Ask split sets but lost in tiebreak, and Carey lost both sets in tiebreak.
Sunday against Penn State, Carey and Ask were working well together but struggled halfway through their match against duo Chris Young and Jason Lee.
“We were still playing good, we just had a little bit of a lapse,” Carey said. “We didn’t want it to get too out of control; we were still on top of them, and we wanted to stay calm.”
Carey and Ask were able to get a win in the No. 2 spot, and as play continued, Van Emburgh’s changes seemed to be working in the Badgers’ favor.
“Rod and Fred have been playing well together, so they got to play at the two and I think it ended up paying off for us [Sunday],” Van Emburgh said of his decision to move the duo to the No. 2 doubles slot.
Pleased with their coach noticing their improvement, Ask and Carey were proud of their performance and seemed to carry that confidence boost to their singles play.
“Today was great,” Ask said. “I really like the way me and Rod have been playing. We had a match point against number two in the country, and so I feel like we’ve been playing great and that continued today.”
The second major change in the lineup for Wisconsin involved breaking up the duo of Satral and Ricardo Martin. Teppert, who made his debut as a Badger this fall after redshirting his 2009-10 season, replaced Satral. The duo worked well together and got the victory.
“Sometimes you just look at your different doubles options,” Van Emburgh said. “Teppert’s been playing some good tennis and his back has been a little sore, so I wanted to get him in the doubles.”
However, the decision didn’t work in everyone’s favor. After sitting out the doubles matches on Sunday – something quite new to him – Satral ended up losing in singles 6-2, 6-2 to Penn State’s Russell Bader.
“I wouldn’t have thought it would affect [Satral], but today, he didn’t play his best tennis,” Van Emurgh said. “I was a little disappointed that he didn’t because I know he’s a lot better of a player. But I know he’ll regroup and be fine for Iowa and Illinois.”