Men's Tennis: Wisconsin takes down UW-Green Bay, Western Illinois to continue hot start

What’s better than one Badger victory? Easy, two Badger victories! The Wisconsin Men’s tennis team (9-2 overall) produced just that by defeating UW Green Bay, and then Western Illinois. The double header started off quite well for the No. 70 ranked Badgers, as they earned the doubles point against Green Bay. The No. 2 doubles squad for the Badgers, featuring freshman Alexander Kokorev and junior Petr Satral, started off with an 8-4 victory against their counterparts Howard Scott and Michael Tebon. The duo of freshmen, Jakhongir Jalalov and Oskar Wikberg, could not complete their comeback as they started off down 4-0, made a match out of it by getting to 4-4, but lost in the end 8-5 to Michael Tenzer and Joey Leto. So it was up to senior Billy Bertha and Kostanov to win the doubles point for the Badgers, and they were definitely up to the challenge as they came back from being down 4-6 to win 8-6 against Erik Finkenbrink and Craig Cox. The momentum from the doubles victories carried into singles play as the Badgers continued to batter the Phoenix. Kostanov continued his yearlong singles domination by easily finishing off Leo Gomez Islinger 6-1, 6-1 at four singles. Next it was Jalalov at 5 singles who captured a 6-4, 6-2 victory against Howard Scott. With the Badgers up 3-0, all they needed was one more victory. That one victory ended up being harder than advertised as Billy Bertha never got it going against Michael Tenzer, losing 3-6, 1-6. So the meet hung in the balance of three matches, all of which went to a third set. Alexander Kokorev broke through first against Rowan Isaaks. Kokorev lost a tough first set 5-7, but remained resilient and came back winning the last two sets 6-4, 6-2 to clinch the meet for the Badgers. While the red and white had things all sewn up, two of the better matches continued to be held. Oskar Wikberg, the fantastic freshman, took the first set rather easily 6-3 and started off the second set up 4-1. However, that is where he started to encounter some problems as he lost control and gave up the second set to Craig Cox 6-4. Wikberg rebounded quickly and went up 4-1 once again in the third set, but once again history repeated itself and he collapsed and lost 5-7. The match of the day occurred at the two doubles spot, where Badger Petr Satral went to war against Erik Finkenbrink. They traded the first two sets, with Finkenbring winning the first 6-3, and then Satral roaring back by winning the second 6-1. The third set was truly a battle as they both traded games leading to an intense tie breaker, where Satral lost 8-10. However, the last two matches did not matter much, as the Badgers did win the overall meet 4-3. The men then quickly regrouped to face Western Illinois, and this time, the Badgers did not mess around. Instead of starting with doubles, the meet started with singles, and it was a huge mismatch across the board. The Badgers humiliated Leathernecks, sweeping the singles matches while not dropping a set in any of them. Since the meet was already decided, the teams decided to bypass the doubles matches and call it a day. The red hot badgers improved to 9-2 on the year, and will face a feisty University of Southern Florida squad next week Saturday at Nielsen.