The University of Wisconsin men’s tennis team gets its conference schedule underway on Saturday, when the Badgers travel to Evanston, Ill. to take on rival Northwestern.
The Wildcats, ranked No. 39 in the country, will be one of the tougher teams Wisconsin faces this year and represent a very difficult start to Big Ten play.
The match will be somewhat of a baptism by fire for the group of Wisconsin freshmen who have seen plenty of action on the court this year. Saturday’s match will be the first Big Ten action for freshmen Jeremy Sonkin, Elliot Bisnow and Felipe Bellido — all three of whom have made big contributions thus far this season. In order to be successful, the Badgers will need those freshmen to grow up quickly if they are to be as competitive in the Big Ten as they aspire.
“We are going to need a tremendous effort up and down the lineup, but especially from the freshmen,” Klingelhoets said. “Those guys are going to be the key. We feel the older guys are pretty solid and we are pretty comfortable with what they are going to do. We need to see our freshmen kind of relax and kind of play the way they are capable of playing.”
The Badgers singles lineup beyond the freshmen is anything but solid however, as the last few matches for UW have been marked by composition changes in the hopes of finding the most successful combination of athletes. The most recent shake-up came last week against DePaul, a match Wisconsin won 4-3, largely on the strength of victories by the constants in the Badger lineup: Sonkin and the brothers Kasarov — Alex and Lachezar.
“We’re hoping to get [the line-up] finalized pretty quick so that guys know what their spot is and what their role is,” Klingelhoets said, hinting that line-up changes are not likely versus Northwestern, but are not out of the question. “There may be a few matches yet before we lock things in. We have a lot of guys who are really even and it’s tough. We’re just trying to come up with the best six players. We probably will play the six guys who played against DePaul in singles, but we just aren’t sure yet and are unsure of the order.
“They are one of the better teams in the Big Ten, they have a lot of experience and they will be a tough matchup,” he continued.
Northwestern is somewhat of a national anomaly, as they climbed to their No. 39 ranking almost entirely due to a strong team effort, as the Wildcats have only one ranked player, Thomas Hanus and even he is only ranked No. 108 in the country. The Wildcats have jumped out to a 4-1 start on the season however, only losing to Harvard this year, which is currently ranked 23rd in the nation. Klingelhoets still has confidence the Badgers can defeat one of the conference’s top teams, but acknowledges it will take a special effort.
“I think we’ve got a shot,” Klingelhoets said. “We’re certainly going to be underdogs, but we feel we have a chance. We’re going to have to get some breaks and everybody is going to have play pretty well.”
Wisconsin also is relying on the improvement of its younger players throughout the course of the season to help the Badgers improve in time for the Big Ten tournament, but the team would like to win a couple of matches early in the season, something they were unable to accomplish last year, to put themselves in better position to make a late run.
“We think that this team will get better as the season goes on,” Klingelhoets said. “If we can sneak out a couple of wins now, early in the season, then I think by the time the Big Ten tournament comes rolls around we’ll be playing awfully well. This is the most talent we’ve had out here in a couple of years.”
The match is scheduled for noon on Saturday.
