The UW men's tennis team (2-6 Big Ten, 7-12 overall) has not been able to have the season they have hoped for this season. Their only conference wins have come against Purdue and Penn State. However, with only one more weekend until the Big Ten tournament, UW is in need of a weekend sweep over conference foes Michigan (2-6, 11-8 overall) Saturday and Michigan State (1-7, 14-12 overall) Sunday to earn a higher seed in the Big Ten Tournament April 29-May 2.
Wisconsin Head Coach Pat Klingelhoets believed the season could have been better, but there is still something to play for this season.
\We really felt that we had six solid players and were headed for a pretty good year,"" Klingelhoets said. ""We are just hopeful that we can get a good enough draw that we can get something done.""
Currently UW is in ninth place in the Big Ten, but with victories over the weekend opponents, Wisconsin could move up as far as sixth in conference.
""[Michigan and Michigan State] are certainly teams that we can beat. What we need to do is get out and win those two matches,"" Klingelhoets said. ""If things fall for us, we hope we could still possibly get a six seed going into the Big Ten tournament and that would give us a pretty decent draw coming in. Traditionally, we have always played well in the Big Ten tournament.""
Michigan has lost three in a row coming into the weekend while Michigan State has lost seven of their last eight. The featured matchups of the weekend will be at the No. 2 doubles seeds, where UW's team of Pete Amundson and Scott Green (4-2 Big Ten) will face the Michigan duo of junior Michael Rubin and freshman Ryan Heller (3-2) Saturday and the Spartan pair of junior Cameron Marshall and senior Eric Simonton (3-5) Sunday.
