The Wisconsin Badgers men’s tennis team faced off against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish at the Eck Tennis Center Friday, marking their first away game of the season. The Badgers played a number of forgettable matches, as they went pointless for the first time since last season against the Ohio State Buckeyes.
In the first of the doubles matches, Wisconsin freshman Patrik Meszaros and junior Michael Minasyan seemed to have the game in their hands with an early 4-2 lead. But quick reactions and back-to-back break points from the Fighting Irish doubles opponents Sebastian Dominiko and Kyran Magimay gave them the finishing blow, ending it 7-5.
Notre Dame handed Meszaros his first loss in any match format of the season, but it seems to be looking tough with more ranked opponents ahead in the schedule.
The sophomore duo Oliver Olsson from Germany and Tomas Zlatohlavek from the Czech Republic faced a similar ending to their doubles match. Although they trailed by one game 3-4, they only won one game on their serve, while Notre Dame’s Peter Nad and Chase Thompson managed to break one in addition to a win on their serve.
The game ended 6-4 in favor of the Fighting Irish, giving them the one point toward the best of three winners of doubles matchups.
Amid the doubles losses for the Badgers, Matthew Fullerton and Edouard Aubert found quite the opposite result. The pair of Badgers dominated their opponents 6-1 in games, giving them no space to breathe with fast-paced returns, bouncing and unreachable shots.
Although Fullerton and Aubert had a statement win, their singular win out of the three doubles matches was just not enough.
The singles matches were closer than expected and kept viewers on their toes with three out of six games going to the third set.
Fighting Irish Kyran Magimay dominated Badger Sachiv Kumar, finishing set one 6-2. But Kumar had other plans in set two, matching Magimay’s intensity and equal rigor to finish set two in his favor 6-3.
But it just was not enough for the Badger freshman as he succumbed 6-3 in the final set, giving away a singles match point to Notre Dame.
Minasyan’s game against Notre Dame’s Dominiko also ended early due to the same reason, but Minasyan seemed to struggle with Dominiko’s powerful forehand blows and side-to-side alternating shots. Although the Badger fell short in the first set, the second set was left unfinished as they were tied when the game was called off.
Fullerton against Nad ended in straight sets 7-5 and 6-3 as the Fighting Irish’s sideline shots and drop-lob combinations could not be matched by the Badgers.
Tomas Zlatohlavek continued to see mixed results from his games, now standing 3-3 in his win-to-loss ratio against opponents in singles matches and 4-3 in doubles matches. His match against Fighting Irish opponent Thompson ended in a crushing straight-set defeat, 6-2, 6-3.
In the matches between Meszaros and Zhang and Aubert against Jameson Corsillo, the two Badgers showed promise in delivering a couple of singles points in favor of Wisconsin.
Meszaros won the first set 7-5 and led in the third 3-2 after a shortcoming in the second set 6-3. Aubert won his first set and fell to Corsillo in the second while being tied 2-2 in the third.
Both matches, potentially worth points for the Badgers, ended early as the other singles matchups were already lost to Notre Dame.
With upcoming matches against Big Ten opponents, the schedule only seems to increase in difficulty and throw adversity after adversity at the Badgers. Their next matchup, a second away game at Marquette, is on Thursday, Feb. 27. This opportunity gives Wisconsin a quick chance at redemption as Wisconsin hopes to prove to themselves their capabilities.
