Minnesota’s men’s tennis team split a pair of matches over the weekend at Baseline Tennis Center but came out with an important Big Ten win in their first action of the spring season.
The 15th-ranked Gophers fell 4-3 to No. 43 Virginia on Friday, but recovered to defeat No. 58 Northwestern 5-2 on Sunday for an early-season conference victory.
The Cavaliers and Wildcats played each other Saturday, with Virginia winning 5-2.
“We’re looking pretty good for a team that hasn’t been together for too long,” Minnesota junior Avery Ticer said. “We’ll take a conference win anytime. We figured a few things out, but we definitely can improve a lot.”
Minnesota (1-1, 1-0 Big Ten) didn’t play a conference match until March 8 last year. After next Sunday’s match at Iowa, the Gophers will have already played a pair.
Following dropping the doubles point Sunday, the Gophers rallied to dominate the singles, taking the first set in five of the six matches.
After the Wildcats’ (2-2, 0-1) Willy Lock made quick work of freshman Brian Lipinski at No. 5 singles, winning 6-1, 6-1, it was all Minnesota.
Gophers freshman Andres Osorio was right behind Lock, frustrating Northwestern’s Matt Christian at No. 4 with a 6-0, 6-2 win.
Senior Aleksey Zharinov then evened the match at two apiece with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Chuck Perrin at No. 1.
After Ticer won his No. 2 singles match, senior 2003 Big Ten singles champion Chris Wettengel iced the win for Minnesota with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Tommy Hanus at No. 3.
Finally, Gophers freshman Dusan Tabak overcame hand blisters that held him out of Friday’s match to beat Jamie Friedland 6-3, 6-2 at No. 6. Tabak replaced Clay Estes, who was battling an arm injury after the Virginia match.
In Friday’s match, the Gophers also dropped the doubles point, and the Cavaliers (2-0) split the singles points for the victory.
Wettengel, Osorio and Lipinski won their matches at Nos. 2, 4 and 6 singles, respectively, but it wasn’t enough for Minnesota.
“Even in the match we lost, I was proud of our guys,” Gophers coach David Geatz said. “They went out and tried as hard as they could and that’s all you can ask. If you compete that hard every match, you’re going to win a lot.”
