Wisconsin’s men’s tennis extended their winning streak to seven on Valentines’ Day weekend, sweeping the DePaul Blue Demons 7-0 on Feb. 15 before dominating the Purdue Boilermakers 6-1 on Feb. 17. to remain undefeated at home and improve their overall record to 8-1.
Fourth sweep of the season
The Badgers sweep started early, with No. 1’s decisive 6-0 doubles win from Oliver Olsson and Tomas Zlatohlavek against Blue Demons Thomas Giles and Augusto Pardo Cano. It didn’t take long before Wisconsin’s Matthew Fullerton and Patrik Meszaros beat out Pablo Torres Almeida and Sebastian Medica with a 6-1 victory, earning the Badgers the double point and taking the game lead.
Wisconsin’s momentum kept churning in the singles matches, with each court sweeping DePaul in two sets.
First to finish was Tomas Zlatohlavek, who scored 6-3 and 6-2 set victories to earn Wisconsin their second overall game point. Matthew Fullerton followed suit, beating Blue Demon Andy Hadziabdic with two 6-2 set leads.
With Wisconsin earning three of the six points needed to win their game, the tipping point came down to a vicious match between Sachiv Kumar and Sven Moser.
While Kumar initially handed Moser a bagel in set one, ending the first set 6-0, he struggled to hold his own in the second set. Moser took an initial 3-1 lead on Kumar, signaling a potential second set victory. But Kumar climbed his way back, delivering a fierce back-and-forth until the set was tied 5-5. Needing to win two more games, Kumar delivered a series of ferocious hits to edge out Moser with a 7-5 victory, win the set and earn the final singles point needed for Wisconsin to beat DePaul.
But winning the game was not enough for the Badgers Friday night. The remaining three matches ended in two more decisive Badger victories, and a No. 1 showdown as
Michael Minasyan and Alejandro Gandini fought in a set tiebreaker before Minasyan earned the Badgers their seventh and final game point.
Badgers cook the Boilermakers
Wisconsin won the doubles point early on with impressive performances from No. 1 and No. 2 doubles.
Badgers No. 2 doubles Ferdinand Kloesters and Michael Minasyan bageled Purdue’s Henrik Villanger and Nour Fathalia 6-0 in under thirty minutes, improving their record to 6-0 and making them 2-0 over the Purdue pair. Kloesters and Minasyan dominated at the net from the first serve, never giving Purdue a chance to get in gear.
No. 1 partnership Oliver Olsson and Tomas Zlatohlavek added a third tally to their win streak this weekend and won the doubles point for the Badgers with a 6-3 win over Boilermakers Maj Premzl and Stefan Simeunovic, mimicking their last score against the Boilermakers.
No. 3 doubles didn’t even have a chance to finish their match thanks to No. 1 and No. 2 doubles’ quick work.
Later in singles play, Zlatohlavek gave up one point for Wisconsin against Purdue to Maj Premzl for the second year in a row, while Minasyan earned a comeback win for the Badgers against Nour Fathalia.
The Badgers stayed strong in singles, winning three-straight sets to bring the Badgers to victory. No. 2 singles Patrik Meszaros won his fifth-straight match with a 6-2, 7-5 victory over Purdue’s Villanger. At No. 6 singles, Meszaro’s doubles partner Matthew Fullerton beat Jacob Lee 6-2, 6-3.
Kloester clinched the match for Wisconsin at No. 4 singles and earned his sixth win of the season over Purdue's Juan David Velasquez.
Sophomore Edouard Aubert energized the home crowd with a win in a tiebreaker set 6-4, 7-6 (8-6) against Purdue’s Simeunovic at No. 3 singles
Wisconsin will return to the Nielsen Tennis Stadium on Saturday, taking on Northern Illinois at 12 p.m.
Iain Chang is a senior staff writer at The Daily Cardinal covering state news and politics.
