The No. 73 Wisconsin Badgers men's tennis team (2-6 Big Ten, 8-10 overall), suffered a heartbreaking 3-4 loss to the No. 39 Northwestern Wildcats (5-3, 12-7) at Nielsen Tennis Stadium Sunday afternoon.
The Badgers started the day by winning the doubles point, but won only two of the singles points. Still, UW Head Coach Pat Klingelhoets said he was happy overall with the Badgers' performance.
\I thought we played a pretty good match,"" Klingelhoets said. ""We got that doubles point which we really felt that we needed to win this match, but I still thought we would have to play extremely well to win ... but I thought overall we played a pretty good match.""
The teams of No 2. seniors Danny Westerman and Justin Baker and No. 3 sophomores David Hippee and Alex Kasarov took the doubles point for UW.
""Danny and I were both returning real well,"" Baker said. ""Doubles is pretty simple, serving and returning. We returned better than they did, and we outplayed them.""
The Badgers started out hot in singles where No. 28 Westerman beat No. 118 freshman Tommy Hanus 6-0, 7-6 at the No. 1 singles spot. Westerman has now won seven of his last eight singles matches. Hanus put together a nice run in the second match before Westerman finally beat him in the tiebreaker.
""It was up and down,"" Westerman said. ""It was a breezy day, he came out very slow, and that screwed up my rhythm a little bit. He played a lot better in the second set, and that kind of frustrated me too.""
UW senior Scott Rutherford defeated Northwestern senior Ryan Edlefsen 6-3, 6-4 at the No. 2 singles spot to put the Badgers up 3-0 against Northwestern. The Wildcats proceeded to win three straight matches to tie the Badgers 3-3 with only the No. 5 singles spot left. Green and Northwestern senior Joost Hol made for a long match, but Hol eventually won 2-6, 6-4, 6-3 to win the entire match for the Wildcats.
The win for Northwestern breaks a three-game losing streak that they had coming in to yesterday's game.
""We desperately needed a win,"" Northwestern Head Coach Paul Torricelli said. ""We knew it was going to be tough, these are the toughest kind of matches. It means a lot. We needed it for some confidence.""
A somewhat gusty wind played a factor in the match for both teams. Neither team had any real advantage with the wind, though.
""I think it probably hurt them as much as it hurt us,"" Klingelhoets said. ""It's always tough playing in the wind, but I didn't really feel it was an advantage for either team to play in the wind, so I don't really think it determined the match.""
There was also a late change to the lineup for Wisconsin. Kasparov replaced senior Jason Gonzaga in the doubles lineup shortly before the match began. The move was made to try and add something new to the doubles lineup where the Badgers had not taken the doubles point for six straight matches.
""We just had been struggling with our doubles, and I just kind of at the last second decided to try a change in the doubles lineup just to see if we could pull off the doubles point,"" Klingelhoets said. ""Fortunately that helped us, but it still didn't help us win the match.\
