For Marquette, winning at Wisconsin is proving to be almost impossible.

Fredrik Ask and Billy Bertha moved to 6-0 on the season as the Wisconsin men’s tennis team (3-3) defeated Marquette (5-4) by a score of 5-2, as the Golden Eagles were yet again denied their first victory against the Badgers since 1996.

Ask and Bertha continued their solid play together, as they notched an 8-6 victory over Dan Mamalat and Jose Crowley to preserve their perfect record. The combination added on another pair of opponents to its list of victories, a list that already boasts a victory over the second ranked team in the nation.

The dynamic duo of Ask and Bertha are just the highlight of Wisconsin’s overall solid doubles play, as the doubles teams have a combined 13-4 record this year and have failed to achieve the doubles point just once this season.

“I think we came off a pretty big win against Georgia Tech,” Bertha said. “Both Fred and I thought it was going to be a hard match. We let our guard down a little bit. Fred’s got pretty good feel, and I bring the power. He is also a lefty and I’m a righty, so that always helps.”

Wisconsin grabbed the doubles point as Alexander Kostanov and Petr Satral beat Marquette’s Jonathan Scherwin and Vukasin Teofanovic, 8-6. The third doubles team of Rod Carey and Alex Robles then fell to Logon Collins and Cameron Tehrani, 9-8 (7-4).

“I want the guys to understand where the need to be emotionally, especially during the doubles,” head coach Greg Van Emburgh said. “We are playing great doubles right now. I felt like we could have done a little better emotionally with the doubles, and I think they will do that against Minnesota.”

Winning the doubles point brought momentum to the Badgers going into the singles matches.

“I think the most important thing is playing like fighters and playing every point like it is the last point. I think that is something we go over and can improve every single time we go out on the court.”

Every match in this dual was a hard-fought battle. Set victories came from the No. 3 and No. 6 players. Petr Satral won his match 6-4, 5-7, 6-3 after being down 0-3 to start the third set.

The victory was sealed when Quinton Vega got his first victory of his career with a 6-1, 4-6, 6-0 beating of Cameron Tehrani.

“He was close to getting a victory against Georgia Tech; he was up a set and was serving for the match but just couldn’t pull out the victory. It was great to see him win today,” Van Emburgh said of Vega.

Wisconsin was forced to battle through injuries too, as both the No. 1 and 2 singles players needed medical timeouts during their respective matches to deal with leg injuries.

Ask was able to overcome his injury and defeat Jose Crowley with a score of 6-4, 6-4. Meanwhile, Kostanov was not able to pull out a victory with a 1-6, 0-6 loss to Dan Mamalat.

The team will travel to Minnesota this weekend to take on the No. 34 Gophers. This match will open the Big Ten season for both teams.