The No. 51 University of Wisconsin Badgers men’s tennis team (9-9, 3-7 Big Ten) made its inaugural Big Ten West Coast road trip for two matches against new conference foes Oregon and Washington.
Unfortunately for the Badgers, the team returned to Madison empty-handed. The trip began in Eugene, Oregon, on April 4 with a 4-2 loss to the No. 62 Oregon Ducks (10-11, 2-7).
Wisconsin, coming off a 4-1 victory over No. 54 Purdue, was competitive for most of the match with the Ducks but wasn’t able to close it out down the stretch.
The doubles play featured three highlight competitive matches. The No. 1 doubles sophomore duo Oliver Olsson and Tomas Zlatohlavek played Oregon’s Lenn Luemkemann and Matthew Burton close but ultimately fell 6-4 in the first match to finish. Shortly after, freshman Patrick Meszaros and junior Michael Minasyan were outlasted by Cooper Errey and Lachlan Robertson 7-5, securing the doubles point for Oregon.
In singles play, the Badgers took two of the first three matches to even the score at 2-2. Sachiv Kumar defeated Errey 6-3, 6-0 in the No. 6 spot. At the No. 4 spot, Zlatohlavek lost 6-3, 6-3 to Burton as Oregon regained the lead. No. 3 singles player freshman Eduoard Aubert evened things up for the Badgers when he defeated Clement Lemire 6-4, 6-2, but it would be Wisconsin’s last victory of the day.
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Oregon was able to close the Badgers out with two three-set victories. Sophomore Matthew Fullerton took set one in a tiebreaker but fell 6-3, 6-2 in the following sets as Robertson claimed the No. 5 singles victory. With the team score sitting at 3-2 in favor of Oregon, Meszaros and Vlad Breazu split the first two sets 6-2, 6-2, but Breazu claimed the third set tiebreaker to end the match.
The Badgers then traveled to Seattle and suffered a 4-1 defeat to the No. 43 Washington Huskies (13-6, 5-4) on April 6.
Once again, the Badgers surrendered the doubles point in two matches. No. 1 doubles team Olsson and Zlatohlavek fell 6-1 to Cesar Bouchelaghem and Dzianis Zharyn. No. 2 doubles team of Meszaros and Minasyan lost their second consecutive match by a final score of 7-5, this time at the hands of Soham Purohit and Nedim Suko.
The first singles match to finish was the No. 6 match, when Kumar put the Badgers on the board with a 6-2, 6-2 win. The Huskies then rallied for three straight close wins to secure a team victory. Washington’s No. 5 Ivan Sodan defeated Fullerton 6-4, 6-4 to take the lead, then Meszaros, playing No. 2 singles, fell 7-6, 7-5 to Zharyn. In the No. 4 spot, Zlatohlavek took set one against Suko but fell 7-5 in the final two sets to end the match.
The Badgers will have some time to recover from the trip out west and will return to action April 12 when No. 38 Nebraska (13-7, 6-4) visits Nielsen Tennis Stadium.