The Wisconsin women's tennis team (2-1) defeated the Northern Illinois Huskies (1-2) last Friday at the Nielsen Tennis Stadium, propelling it into its first winning record in 2009.
After a challenging opening weekend, Wisconsin senior Elizabeth Carpenter and freshman Angela Chupa picked up the doubles point with clean wins in the No. 1 position. The duo only dropped one game, and the second doubles win came from UW sophomore Jessica Seyferth and freshman Aleksandra Markovic, who secured the point in a perfect 8-0 match in the No. 2 position.
Doubles play set the tone for the rest of the afternoon, as the women swept the singles points without dropping a set. At the No. 1 and No. 3 positions Carpenter and Katya Mirnova swept their matches 6-0, 6-0, and Chupa improved her singles record to 3-0 this season with a 6-1, 6-4 win over NIU's Emily Rogers.
Next weekend the Badgers head to Virginia for tough dual matches against No. 59 Old Dominion Saturday and then No. 27 William and Mary Sunday.
Men's Tennis
The UW men's tennis team suffered its first loss of the 2009 season to the No. 39 East Tennessee Buccaneers 4-3 Saturday at the ITA National Team Indoor Championships in Charlottesville, Va., before defeating No. 45 Arkansas State 6-1 Sunday.
Coming off a decisive midweek 6-1 win over Marquette, the Badgers lost the doubles point to the Buccaneers (1-1) early on in the meet with only junior Moritz Baumann and sophomore Marek Michalicka winning their match 8-5.
No. 117-ranked Baumann, who was last week's Big Ten Player of the Week, maintained the team's only undefeated singles record (6-0), moving the Badgers to an early lead of 2-1 in the meet. The team also picked up singles wins from freshman newcomer Patrick Pohlmann and junior Luke Rassow-Kantor in the No. 3 and No. 4 positions, but sustained a difficult loss when sophomore Peter Marrack lost his first singles match of the season in straight sets to the Buccaneers' Daniel Isaza.
On day two at Boyd Tinsley Courts the UW men fared much better against the Arkansas Razorbacks (0-2), winning two of three doubles matches with solid performances from Baumann and Michalicka, who remain undefeated as a pair this season. Polhmann and Rassow-Kantor delivered a strong match in their first meet as a pair, securing the early doubles point with their 8-4 victory.
The Badgers picked up three singles points on wins from junior Michael Dierbeger, Baumann and Marrack, and only Michalicka lost his match this time in two tight sets. After a 6-0 blowout in the first, the No. 36-ranked Michalicka battled back in the second but lost the set 7-6 (7-4) by a mini-break in the tiebreak game.
This weekend. the Wisconsin men's tennis team will return home to face Louisville at 11 a.m. Sunday before the ITA championships.
- uwbadgers.com contributed to this report.
