The Wisconsin men’s tennis team dropped its fifth and sixth decisions of the Big Ten season Saturday and Sunday to the Nittany Lions of Penn State and the No. 17 Buckeyes of Ohio State.
Wisconsin failed to capture the point in the double’s portion of the match against Penn State, which has been its strength throughout this season. PSU’s Roddy Cantey and Malcolm Scatliffe upset the Badgers top pairing of senior co-captain David Hippee and junior Alex Kasarov, who are currently ranked No. 33 in the nation as a team. The UW duo fell by a score of eight games to six.
In the two-slot, senior co-captain Scott Green and freshman Pete Amundson took Penn State’s Brad Hunter and Clint Keithly to a tiebreaker, before losing nine games to eight. Ward Bortz and Mark Weinig lost to Aaron Ellis and James Crowell in another close match, also nine games to eight.
UW earned its two points in singles competition. Though Scatliffe took out Kasarov in straight sets in the top matching ? winning the first set six games to four and the second set six games to two ? the Badgers picked up two victories in the next two matches.
In the two-pairing Green and Cantley traded shots through just over two sets. Cantley took the first set six games to four and Green took the second set by the same score. With the score at one a piece in the third, Cantley quit, giving Green a forfeit victory.
Hippee put forth the Badgers’ strongest showing of the weekend at three, allowing Keithly just one game in the first set and none in the second. Todd Stecko defeated Ward Bortz in a marathon match at four. After dropping the first set, Stecko came back and won the second six games to four. In the final set, Bortz fell by the score of ten to six.
In the five and six slots, Penn State’s Ryan Berger and Brad Hunter dispatched of UW’s Mark Weinig and Pete Amundson, respectively, by the scores of 6-4, 6-2 and 6-1, 6-2.
The 17th-ranked Ohio State men’s tennis team swept Wisconsin Sunday, 7-0. The Badgers fell to 7-12 on the season and 2-6 in Big Ten Conference competition. The Buckeyes improved their record to 19-3 overall and 7-1 in the Big Ten.
OSU took two of the three double matches to capture the doubles point. Amundson and Green defeated Scott Green and Ross Wilson, 8-6 at the No. 2 spot.
Joey Atas and Jeremy Wurtzman, the No. 56 doubles team in the nation, upset Hippee and Kasarov for the second time of the weekend, 8-6. Brenton Contini and Dennis Mertens defeated Bortz and Weinig, 8-1, at the No. 3 slot.
In singles action, the nation’s top ranked player, OSU’s Wurtzman, took down Kasarov in a 6-2, 6-2 decision. The Badgers fell in the remaining five matches.
Bortz dropped the closest singles match of the day in a tiebreaker to Dennis Mullings, 6-4, 3-6, 1-0 at the No. 4 spot.
The Badgers return to Madison next weekend for their final matches of the season. Wisconsin will pair off against Michigan State (14-12 overall, 1-7 Big Ten) Saturday and Michigan (11-8, 2-6) Sunday.
–compiled from staff reports
