The Badger men’s tennis team hosted the 40th ranked Wildcats of Northwestern at Nielsen Tennis Stadium Saturday. Wisconsin played tough, but fell 4-3 to the Wildcats.
The loss drops the Badgers to 3-4 overall and 0-1 in Big Ten play.
The Wildcats notched their first Big Ten win of the season, and improved to 9-4 overall and 1-1 in conference play.
Wisconsin got off to a fast start by stealing the doubles point. The number one duo of David Hippie and Alex Kasarov, ranked 40th in the country, took down the Wildcats top pair of Chuck Perrin and Justin Hoeveler by a margin of 8-6.
The Badgers also got a win from the number-two team. Senior co-captain Scott Green and sophomore Alex Conti defeated the Northwestern duo of Tommy Hanus and Christian Tempke also by a score of 8-6. Wisconsin was not able to sweep the doubles matches, as the number three pair of Ward Bortz and Jordan Raemisch fell by a 6-8 score.
Wisconsin didn’t dig up the same success when it came to singles play. The Badgers came up on the short end of one too many nail biters. Leading the Badgers with victories in singles play were number one and number four singles. Alex Kasarov took an early lead over Northwestern’s Tommy Hanus before falling in the first set 5-7.
However, he came storming back to grab the next two sets 6-3, 6-3 to tally the point for Wisconsin. Scott Green knocked off Willy Lock in a grueling thriller of a match by a 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 (7) margin. Green dominated the first set, but Lock came back in a very long and hard fought second set. Green put forth a heroic effort, overcoming cramping legs to put Lock to bed in the tiebreaker.
“I won the first set, and then lost that long second set. Then I was down a break, but broke him somehow. Then my legs started cramping and [I] was kind of like if you’re going to beat him you’re going to have to hit a lot of balls and have to play a lot of solid points,” Green said. “I just kind of changed up the game plan and started going for a little more and just kind of got through it I guess.”
Head coach Pat Klingelhoets was very happy with the play of the Appleton native.
“He played a great match” Klingelhoets said. “Not only did he make a good comeback, but mentally he played a good match throughout the entire thing. That is great for us to see. [It] is only going to help him through the rest of the season. We were real pleased with that effort.”
The rest of the singles matches were closely fought, but no other Badgers could come out with a victory. Hippie at number two singles fell to Tempke 4-6, 2-6. At number three, Conti almost notched his first singles victory of the season falling to Perrin 6-7 (5), 3-6. Christian disposed of Bortz at number five singles 2-6, 4-6. Mark Weinig, at number six singles, lost the first set quickly 3-6, but staged a comeback by winning the second set 6-0. However, he was unable to finish his opponent off, dropping the last set 1-6.
Although not a win, Klingelhoets was still pleased with the performance of his team.
“We played well. They’re a good team, especially in singles,” he said. “They got a lot of guys that are real smart and keep fighting hard. We had a couple matches where it was just a few points, and then they were just a little bit tougher and got over the hump. We’re pleased with the way our guys played. Our doubles was pretty good, and then our guys fought hard in singles, just couldn’t quite get over the hump.”
The Badgers have a few days off before heading down I-94 to Milwaukee on Wednesday to face the Golden Eagles of Marquette.
