SOUTH BEND, Ind. – In the opening act of the doubleheader today, the University of Notre Dame men’s tennis team dug deep to come out with a very hard fought 5-2 match against the Wisconsin Badgers. As they have been doing, Sebastian Dominko and Connor Fu came out and dominated their opponents at #1 doubles with a 6-2 win, their sixth-straight victory at the top spot. But the Irish would lose the other two doubles matches and find themselves down 1-0 headed into singles.
Dominko would get down 2-0 to start his singles match at #1 but then it was all in favor of the Irish freshman as he would 12 of the next 14 games to win 6-4, 6-1 and quickly tie up the overall match score. Jameson Corsillo would extend the second set after losing the first but ultimately lose 6-2, 7-5 at #6. But the remaining 4 other matches would all go the distance and need third sets to determine the match winners and the overall team victory.
Junior Jean-Marc Malkowski saw his first action of the year and made a statement in his return. He would find himself on the #2 singles court and won the opening set 6-3. After dropping the second set, he raced out to an early lead in the third and never looked back securing a 6-0 third set victory. Yu Zhang would also win the first set and drop the second. In the third, the two players would trade holding serve the first 7 games of the set before Zhang broke at love to give himself the 5-3 lead and a chance to serve it out. After jumping out to a 40-0 lead, it wouldn’t be until his fourth match point that he would hold at deuce to put the Irish ahead 3-1.
With his back against the wall, Fu was down a set and a break at #3 singles. But the senior battled back and took the second in a tiebreak before running away with a decisive 6-1 final set and secure the team win for the Irish. Graduate student Addy Vashistha would tack on the final win for the team with his come from behind victory 3-6, 6-0, 7-6(4) and make the team score 5-2 at the end of the first match.
After a quick break, Notre Dame took the court again to host the University of Illinois-Chicago. Dominko and Fu would tally their ninth win of the season and Halpin and Lee would take the #2 doubles spot to secure the early 1-0 lead.
In singles, Dominko on the top court and sophomore Brian Bilsey on court #4 would waste no time adding the second and third points with matching 6-0, 6-1 scores. This would set up freshman Noah Becker to get his first career clinch with a 6-3, 6-1 victory at #3 singles and a 4-0 team win. The remaining matches would be abandoned.
Up Next:
A pair of top-5 opponents are on the schedule for the Irish next week. In a rare mid-week match, Notre Dame will host Michigan on Thursday, February 23rd at 6pm in South Bend. Then they will head East to Columbus, Ohio to take on the #1 team in the country, the Ohio State Buckeyes.
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Notre Dame 5 – Wisconsin 2
Doubles
- Dominko/Fu(ND) def. Huber/Minasyan(WISC) 6-2
- Pratt/Popovic(WISC) def. Halpin/Malkowski(ND) 6-2
- Parts/Vile(WISC) def. Che/Zhang(ND) 6-3
Order of Finish(1, 2, 3)
Singles
- Dominko(ND) def. Pratt(WISC) 6-4, 6-1
- Malkowski(ND) def. Hilderbrandt(WISC) 6-4, 3-6, 6-0
- Fu(ND) def. Popovic(WISC) 2-6, 7-6(4), 6-1
- Vashistha(ND) def. Vile 3-6, 6-0, 7-6(4)
- Zhang(ND) def. Huber(WISC) 6-3, 2-6, 6-3
- Minasyan(WISC) def. Corsillo(ND) 6-2, 7-5
Order of Finish(1, 6, 2, 5, 3, 4)
Notre Dame 4 – Illinois-Chicago 0
Doubles
- Dominko/Fu(ND) def. Cvjetan/Schweber(UIC) 6-3
- Halpin/Lee(ND) def. Strandberg/Iermolov(UIC) 6-3
- Becker/Bilsey(ND) vs. Wazir/Bucan(UIC) 5-2 DNF
Order of Finish(1, 2)
Singles
- Dominko(ND) def. Bucan(UIC) 6-0, 6-1
- Zhang(ND) vs. Strandberg 6-0, 1-5 DNF
- Becker(ND) def. Vallurupalli(UIC) 6-3, 6-1
- Bilsey(ND) def. Cvjetan(UIC) 6-0, 6-1
- Corsillo(ND) vs. Schweber(UIC) 6-7(4) DNF
- Halpin(ND) vs. Wazir(UIC) 6-2, 2-2 DNF
Order of Finish(1, 4, 3)