Danny Westerman won an emotional No. 1 singles match coming from behind, but the Wisconsin’s men’s tennis team lost 5-2 to third-ranked Illinois Thursday at Nielsen Tennis Center.
The Fighting Illini (17-4, 7-0 Big Ten) roundly took care of UW (8-9, 2-5), sweeping the doubles sets and adding to its undefeated conference record.
Sophomore Amer Delic, ranked 12th nationally, was key for Illinois, winning at No. 1 doubles and No. 2 singles.
Westerman beat Illinois’ other touted sophomore, Brian Wilson, 6-4, 3-6, 7-5, rallying from triple match-point in the evening’s final match.
Serve held through most of the third set as No. 28 Westerman and No. 48 Wilson exchanged the first eight games, but Wilson broke serve on Westerman’s double fault to go up 5-4 and put the Wisconsin captain’s back against a wall.
Westerman held a tantrum after the umpire’s call put him behind 40-0 in the next game. Tempers had been high all day, with he and Wilson each barking at one another and the umpire, but this time Westerman shouted for several minutes.
“I felt like I got robbed on the call. That’s a huge point; she was giving him three match points,” Westerman said. “It was just emotion and I think that got me back into it, to get that fired up.”
Earlier in the third set, Wilson had been penalized a point for throwing his racket, but hesitated to make a call against Westerman’s outburst.
“You don’t want to take a match away from a kid on something like that,” said UW head coach Pat Klingelhoets.
The theatrics might have gotten into Wilson’s head.
Westerman won the next three points to force deuce and eventually broke the serve. He came out strong on his serve and then broke Wilson again on a double fault to win the match.
“He gave me a few free points. I was on the brink of losing and he kind of gave me a little gift. He gave me one big point to make it deuce,” Westerman said. “That’s maybe experience. It’s whoever can battle the nerves better.”
Westerman improved to 22-11 and, according to Klingelhoets, probably wrapped up an NCAA singles bid. It was just Wilson’s third match at No. 1 singles.
The Badgers’ only other win came in straight sets when Alex Kasarov beat Mike Kosta at No. 5 singles, 7-6, 7-5.
Illinois did not lose another set. Delic beat Scott Rutherford 6-1, 6-4; Phil Stolt defeated Dave Hippee at No. 3 singles 6-2, 6-3, and Scott Green lost 6-3, 6-2 to Michael Calkins. UW’s No. 6 Justin Baker was the first Badger eliminated after a quick loss to Nathan Zeder, 6-2, 6-1.
The first outdoor competition at Nielsen this spring turned out to be a windy affair. The strong, whirling gusts frustrated Westerman, a hard-serving lefthander, in his doubles match (an 8-3 loss at No. 2) and even early into the singles.
“They played a little smarter than we did with the wind conditions,” Klingelhoets said. “They’ve got a lot of big hitters, but they didn’t try and hit the big serve. They kept their first serve in, and we tried to overhit and didn’t do as much with the ball in the wind.”
All week, Wisconsin had been focusing on taking the doubles point to counteract its disadvantage to the loaded Illini. Instead, Illinois won all three doubles matches. UW’s best chance came when No. 1 doubles pair Scott Green and Scott Rutherford pushed Delic and Calkins to 7-7 before faltering.
Green and Rutherford had fallen behind 6-3 but took the momentum from a questionable call, when the official appeared to make up for a poorly called earlier point by awarding a crucial break point to the UW pair. Green’s smash at the net tied the set at seven-all, but Illinois held serve and then took advantage of errors to break Wisconsin and win the set.
“We had a couple chances to break, and we just got a little unlucky,” Rutherford said. “Then I just hit a couple bad serves, and that was that.”
