The No. 58 University of Wisconsin Badgers men’s tennis team (6-3, 0-1 Big Ten) opened play in the newly expanded Big Ten this season with a 5-2 away loss against the Northwestern Wildcats (8-7, 1-0) on Friday, March 7.
The Badgers, led by Head Coach Danny Westerman, who is entering his 10th season at the helm, were unable to serve up a win over Northwestern and their first-ever Big Ten Freshman of the Week Vincent Yang.
The match opened with a tightly contested doubles matchup between Badger freshman Edouard Aubert and sophomore Matthew Fullerton facing off against Wildcat sophomore Jackson Caldwell and Yang.
After both teams split the first two doubles sets, this third matchup would decide which team would take the doubles point advantage into singles play. Unfortunately for the Badgers, the Wildcats would win the set 6-3 and lead the match 1-0, dropping Aubert and Fullerton to 2-2 in doubles play as a duo this season.
Heading into singles play, Aubert made quick work of his opponent, taking his revenge on Caldwell and winning both sets 6-3, tying the match at one apiece. Aubert opened the season up 5-0 in singles play, winning the first-ever Big Ten Freshman of the Year award back in January. With his win over Caldwell, he improved to 6-1 at the No. 5 spot this season.
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At the No. 6 slot, an all-freshman matchup went back and forth between Sachiv Kumar and Yang, but Yang was able to restore the Wildcats’ lead with a 6-4, 6-1 victory. Junior Michael Minasyan lined up at the No. 1 spot, where he’s played in all nine matches so far this season, beating Northwestern graduate student Saiprakash Goli 6-2, 6-1, tying the matchup back up at two-all.
Freshman Patrick Meszaros and sophomore Thomas Zlatohlavek swapped their usual spots at No. 2 and No. 3 respectively, both playing their first matches of the season at these spots. The mix-up didn’t work well for the Badgers, as Meszaros lost 7-6, 6-3 and Zlatohlavek lost 6-4, 7-5, giving the Wildcats the 4-2 lead and the match victory.
The Badgers wouldn’t concede the matchup, however, allowing Fullerton to fight back in his matchup against junior Chad Miller. After dropping the first set 6-4, Fullerton dug deep to win the second set 7-6 and force a third set tiebreaker. Despite the second-set comeback, Fullerton just didn’t have enough in the tank to win the tiebreaker, giving the Wildcats the 5-2 victory.
The Badgers won’t have to travel far for their next matchup against the No. 20 Fighting Illini on Sunday, March 9. The Fighting Illini opened their Big Ten season with a 4-1 win over the No. 48 Nebraska Cornhuskers. Illinois is led by No. 12 junior Kenta Miyoshi, who is 7-2 at the No. 1 spot this season and has already won a Big Ten Player of the Week award.
The matchup between the Badgers and Fighting Illini will serve at noon on Sunday and will be streamed on the Fighting Illinis’ website.