On its road trip last weekend, the Wisconsin women's tennis team fell to Michigan 6-1 Saturday before losing a devastatingly close 4-3 contest against Michigan State Sunday.
The Wolverines (4-1 Big Ten, 9-5 overall) notched their second consecutive doubles sweep, beginning with an 8-0 victory over junior Katya Mirnova and sophomore Jessica Seyferth at the No. 3 position. They cleaned up as the No. 31. pair of juniors Tania Mahtani and senior Chisako Sugiyama downed No. 35 senior Liz Carpenter and freshman Angela Chupa to secure the point.
Unrelentingly, the No. 16 Wolverines continued their rampage into doubles play, collecting five more points in singles before Mirnova scored the Badgers' lone point in a tiebreak 4-6, 6-3, 1-0 (8).
On day two of their Michigan tour, the Badgers (0-5 Big Ten, 5-12 overall) faced Michigan State (1-4, 8-10) for what turned into a five-hour assault as each team looked to post its first conference win.
Doubles opened with an upset as the unranked tandem of freshman Elena Ivanova and senior Stephanie Kebler brought down Carpenter and Chupa 8-5. Although sophomore Emese Kardhordo and Mirnova gave the Badgers a win at the No. 2 position with a 9-7 victory, the Spartans secured the point and the early lead when freshman Dana Guentert and sophomore Lindsey Lonegran defeated Badger freshman Aleksandra Markovic and Seyferth to earn their second victory as partners.
Moving on to singles the Badgers regained ground quickly, tallying three consecutive singles finishes at No. 3, 4 and 1 from Mirnova, Seyferth and Carpenter. Mirnova improved to 2-0 in singles for the weekend with her straight-set, 6-4, 6-0 victory over senior Ana Milosavljevic and the Badgers were up 3-1, looking for one more point to rally the win.
Chupa provided the cardinal and white the opportunity at No. 5, battling back from a first set loss to take the second 6-2. Guentert was ready, however, and fought back to take the match 6-1, 2-6, 6-1.
Another loss at No. 6 left the meet tied at 3-3. The match came down to Markovic, who succumbed to Ivanova at No. 2 after taking the first set to 6-7, 6-3, 6-3. With the win, the Spartans improved to 8 wins on their season and sent the Badgers, still without a conference victory, home.
Next weekend the women will square off against the unranked Purdue Boilermakers (1-3, 5-9) at Nielsen Tennis Stadium once again. The Badgers lead Purdue all-time 27-9 but lost to the Boilermakers last year 4-3.
--—uwbadgers.com and msuspartans.cstv.com contributed to this report.
