Things are not getting any easier for Wisconsin’s men’s tennis team. The Badgers lost 4-3 and dropped to 8-10 overall and 2-6 in the Big Ten with a loss to the fourth-ranked Northwestern Wildcats yesterday.
The two teams played outdoors through the strong wind gusts and some light rain at Nielsen Tennis Stadium Sunday afternoon. This loss puts them in a must-win situation for the next two conference games against Iowa (April 19) and a very talented Minnesota team (April 21) in order to earn a good seed at the Big Ten Tournament in late April and advance to the NCAA tourney in early May.
The No. 2 and No.3 doubles teams, which have been causing problems for the Badgers all season, turned in victories yesterday in a three game pro-set. Winning 8-2 and 8-5, the Badgers earned the doubles point, which has slipped through their hands multiple times this season.
The change in the doubles line up paired the senior captain Danny Westerman with Justin Baker at No.2, and David Hippie and Alexander Kasarov at No. 3. The No.1 doubles team of Scott Rutherford and Scott Green lost their match 8-6.
All week Wisconsin had been concentrating on not being defeated by the doubles point.
“Everyone, to be honest, is tired of losing at doubles,” Westerman, who’s also UW’s No.1 singles player, said. “We put our heads together a little better today. We’ve lost some tight matches in doubles and today we got it done. We are capable of winning all the doubles points we’ve lost, it’s just that we came up short a few times.”
A split in singles is all the Badgers needed to defeat the Wildcats, but they were unable to capitalize on the situation, losing at the No. 3, 4, 5 and 6 spots.
At No. 1 singles, No. 28 Westerman put the Badgers up 2-0 with his victory over NU’s freshman Tommy Hanus 5-0, 7-5 after a tiebreaker in the second set. Westerman, now 12-6 overall and 6-2 in the Big Ten has now won seven of his last eight matches. Scott Rutherford at No.2 singles also played just two sets against Ryan Edlefsen to give the Badgers a solid 3-0 lead over NU.
The advantage was quickly lost as the next three matches at the No. 3, 5 and 6 spots were wrapped up with NU victories. Sophomore Scott Green was left playing Joost Hol. They had split the first set 2-6, 6-4. In the third set Green was up 3-2 before Hol snatched the next for games to win 6-3 and give the Wildcats a victory in the match.
“The wind and the outdoor courts weren’t really a factor in the outcome. I felt it hurt [Northwestern] just as much as it hurt us. We played Illinois in winds like this before,” UW head coach Pat Klingelhoets stated on the conditions on the court. “Singles-wise they were just a tad stronger than us. We needed the doubles point which we got, but even then we were going to have to put together really good singles to get three more points, and unfortunately we couldn’t pull it off.”