With March Madness over and football so very far away, it’s time to break out the tennis rackets. This season the men’s tennis team is lead by redshirted sophomore Alexander Kasarov, who is No. 1 in singles for the team and also No. 1 in pairs with his partner in crime, David Hippee.
The tenacious tandem has been ranked as high nationally as No. 28. With a record of 14-2, the pair is currently ranked No. 30 in the country.
A native of Bourgas, Bulgaria, Kasarov returns for his second season after being redshirted his freshman year and posting an overall 19-17 record that was the second-most wins on the team last year.
Success on a highly competitive level is nothing new to Kasarov with his pre-Wisconsin career in his native land of Bulgaria. A national champion in singles and doubles at Under-14, a finalist in singles and champion in doubles (Under-16), an Under-18 national champion in singles and doubles, a member of national team of Bulgaria, and having competed with the 1999 Davis Cup Team have contributed to preparing Kasarov for success on the collegiate level. When high school was over and it became time to play in the states, Kasarov chose Wisconsin as his new adopted home.
“I was in a camp with my Davis Cup team back home. The coach gave me information about Minnesota, and later I found out about the Big Ten universities,” said Kasarov. “The coach from Madison called often, and I was really interested in taking business [classes]. My coach told me about Madison’s business school, and that’s how I chose it.”
The role of leadership fell into Kasarov’s lap, among other players, because of the void left by the graduating class, along with the lack of traditional senior leadership. This year’s team features only one senior player, Blake Baratz, and an overwhelming number of freshmen (six out of 10 players).
This lack of a strong senior class has led to younger players playing a more prominent role, leading to Kasarov’s impressive doubles play with partner Hippee.
“Our No. 1 doubles team, in particular, is having just an outstanding year,” head coach Pat Klingelhoets said. “… I think they have won about 10 or 12 in a row now. Their actual record is about 16-2 for the year at No. 1 doubles, and they’re really in contention for a spot in the NCAA tournament.”
“If they can win three or four of the next few matches here and finish out strong, I think they have a great chance of going. We haven’t had a doubles team in the NCAA tournament for I think about 11 or 12 years. So that would be a tremendous accomplishment for those guys if they can make it.”
The team as a whole has not faired as well as the pair, going 4-13 overall and 1-5 in the Big Ten with four matches left to play. However, the team is still able to fight for a decent seed in the Big Ten tournament, and with that, the mistakes of the regular season can be washed away.
“We do have a lot of bright spots with this team and as far as the future of this program. The first thing is that we are winning doubles points consistently. We’ve won about 80 to 90 percent of our doubles points this year,” coach Klingelhoets said. “We still have four Big Ten matches left. We really have a good shot at winning at least three of those matches, so we still feel we can get a decent seed going into the Big Ten tournament. We’re shooting for a No. 6 or No. 7 seed going in, which would obviously give us a first-round match which we could probably win and [which would] give us a shot at one of those top-three teams.”
With such a young nucleus, the men’s tennis team has a long road ahead of them, but with young stars like Alexander Kasarov, it’s a bright future.
