The Wisconsin men's tennis team defeated Butler (6-8) 7-0 at Nielsen Tennis Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
The No. 62 Badgers (6-4, 1-1) got off to a fast start by capturing the doubles point against a tough Butler doubles crew.
"Butler has beat Clemson, they beat Indiana and they beat Purdue in the doubles," said UW head coach Greg Van Emburgh. "They really base their program on those doubles points, so it was really, really important [to get that doubles point]."
The first-year Badger coach was happy for his team to be able to come through strong and take the doubles point.
"I knew [the ability] was there. It was just whether they're getting themselves there," Van Emburgh said. "We know what they can do in the doubles. They just need to be ready, be determined, do it every time we step out on the court. I think it is important for us to make sure we're looking to go up 1-0 into the singles."
The top doubles pairing of Jeremy Sonkin and Nolan Polley led the way for the Badgers by dispatching their opponents, Parker Ross and Brandon Gill, by an 8-4 margin.
Wisconsin clinched the doubles point with an 8-4 win by the doubles pair of Lachezar Kasarov and Felipe Bellido over Butler's Eric Breitenbach and James Low. Gian Hodgson and Brennen Phippen also triumphed for UW, defeating Tony Aker and Andy Bartish 8-6.
In singles, the Badgers were led by Sonkin, the reigning two-time Big Ten athlete of the week. The sophomore was able to easily defeat Gill, 6-2, 6-0.
"[Gill] is easily an opponent who could give me a lot of trouble," Sonkin said. "The key to winning this match was hitting winners, being aggressive, taking advantage of every point I could and just staying on top of him, and eventually he broke down and couldn't handle what I was giving him."
No. 2 singles player Polley fought with Low through a long first set. Eventually, Polley was able to come out on top with a hard fought 6-3 win. He easily disposed of Low in the next set 6-0.
Co-captain Kasarov cruised early against Bartish, taking the first set 6-1. The second set proved to be more difficult as Kasarov fell in the tiebreaker 6-7 (6-8), but he was able to recover and get the win by beating Bartish in the last set 10-7.
Phippen of UW also had a tough match against Ross. Ross seemingly had Phippen beat in the first set, but Phippen battled back to defeat the Bulldog 7-6 and then finished him off in the second set 6-2.
Bellido then sealed the win for the Badgers by knocking off Evan West of Butler 6-4, 6-2. Hodgson also defeated Scott Newmark 6-4, 6-3.
Van Emburgh was pleased with the performance of his team and the effort they put into their victory.
"Having the guys being focused and ready to play [was important]," Van Emburgh said. "Butler's not a ranked team. They could have come out here and maybe taken them a little lightly, [but] they didn't. They showed up, they were ready to play, they wanted to win this match. And if they could win it 7-0, they would win it 7-0, which they did today."
The Badgers' next match is on Wednesday, when they travel to Milwaukee to take on Marquette.
