Following three straight losses to ranked teams, the No. 34 men’s tennis team is back in business.
The Gophers defeated No. 61 Arizona 7-0 on Saturday and unranked DePaul 5-2 on Sunday at the Baseline Tennis Center to improve to 3-3 on the season.
It was Minnesota’s third convincing win at home to start the season — the Gophers also swept Marquette on Jan. 21 — but these two were much needed.
The Gophers hadn’t won a singles match since Jan. 29 and had lost 15 of their last 18 matches in total. They appeared overmatched at times against top-40 opponents San Diego, Louisiana State and Louisville during their two-week road trip.
This weekend, it was Minnesota’s opponents that looked overmatched.
The Gophers didn’t drop a set in singles or doubles play Saturday, and they needed less than three hours to sweep the Wildcats.
Phillip Arndt (No. 1 singles) held on to defeat Arizona’s Andre Vidaller after saving three consecutive break points at 2-3 in the second set.
At second singles, No. 118 Leandro Toledo defeated the Wildcats’ Sumeet Shinde 6-4, 6-3 in the day’s longest match.
Sunday’s contest against DePaul — which defeated Arizona 6-1 on Saturday — was much closer, as Minnesota needed two tiebreakers to pull out victories at No. 1 and No. 2 doubles before controlling singles play.
The 50th-ranked tandem of Rok Bonin and Julian Dehn won 9-8 (2) at No. 1 doubles, while Arndt and Jack Hamburg won 9-8 (5) at No. 2 doubles.
Bonin, Dehn and Hamburg each dominated their singles match later Sunday, losing just eight games combined.
Arndt won an opening-set tiebreaker in his singles match against DePaul’s Filip Dzanko, but he lost the second set 6-2 and lost a third-set supertiebreaker 10-5.
Mathieu Froment (No. 5 singles) also lost a third-set supertiebreaker, falling 10-5 to Matija Palinic after winning the second set 6-4. Froment had also rallied from 5-0 down in the first set, only to lose it 7-5.
At No. 2 singles, Toledo defeated George Chanturia 6-4, 7-5.
Minnesota will have a week off before it hosts rival Wisconsin on Feb. 25. The Gophers defeated the Badgers twice last season in Madison, Wis.
