The No. 45 Wisconsin men's tennis squad completed a sweep of conference rivals Iowa and Minnesota this weekend, beating the Hawkeyes 7-0 Saturday and then upending the Golden Gophers Sunday, 5-2. The weekend put the Badgers above .500 in the Big Ten with a record of 5-4, 13-9 overall.
Saturday the Badgers headed to Iowa City to take on an already-struggling Hawkeyes team that had a 0-6 Big Ten record. The Wisconsin doubles teams of Baumann/Kasarov and Polley/Dierberger earned the match's first point for Big Red, taking two of the three preliminary doubles matches. Then the Badgers' singles players went to work on the Hawkeyes.
At Wisconsin's No. 1 singles slot, freshman Moritz Baumann of Germany dismantled his Iowa counterpart Bart von Monsjou in straight sets, 6-1 and 6-2. The Badgers' No. 2 through No. 6 players all won tough three-set matches.
Big Red left Iowa City with a hard-fought sweep of the Hawkeyes, but could not relish in the victory, with a match against the No. 36 Minnesota Golden Gophers the following day.
The Badger men showed no signs of fatigue against the higher-ranked Gophers Saturday, taking all three opening doubles matches to again earn the day's first point.
No. 1 Baumann lost his match against Minnesota rival Raoul Schwark and no. 6, freshman Michael Dierberger, fell to the Gophers' Dino Bilankov for the squad's only losses. No. 3, junior Nolan Polley, did not drop a game to Minnesota's D.J. Geatz, winning 6-0, 6-0. Wisconsin's No. 2, No. 5 and No. 6 singles players all won decisive victories, while no. 4, senior Lachezar Kasarov, held off a tough opponent in Minnesota's Mikey Kantar, who retired in the third set.
Head coach Greg van Emburgh commented on the Badgers' tough victory over the Gophers, stating, ""Going into a match on the road against a great team like Minnesota and getting a win is no easy task, especially when you consider that they were coming off of a big win over Northwestern on Friday."" Emburgh considered Wisconsin's Saturday performance one of the finest of the year.
With the Badgers' season winding down, the squad looks to their final regular season match Saturday, when they host rival Michigan State at Nielsen Tennis Stadium.
—uwbadgers.com
contributed to this report
