EVANSTON, Ill. – Road wins are always hard to come by but the Notre Dame men’s tennis team went to Evanston on Sunday afternoon and came away with a 4-2 win against Northwestern.
The Irish came out blistering, winning the doubles point in 25 minutes with wins at #1 and #3. Chase Thompson and Peter Nad continued to win at the top spot, winning without surrendering a single game as they took the court 6-0. Shortly after, Sebastian Dominko and Noah Becker won at #3 doubles 6-1. Jamie Corsillo and Yu Zhang were at #2 today and up a break 4-2 when the match was abandoned.
Dominko put a quick second point on the board for Notre Dame with a 6-1 6-3 win at the top position in the lineup. But the Wildcats would take the next two matches at #2 and then #4 singles to tie the score 2-2.
Luis Llorens was in at #6 today and had to overcome a slow start in which he got down 5-1 in the first set. He battled his way back and saved multiple set points to find himself at 6-6 where the momentum he built would carry through to a 7-1 win in the tiebreak. After building a 5-1 lead of his own in the second set, it was Northwestern’s turn to push back and get within a game of evening the set. But Llorens would capitalize on another chance to serve out the match and would do so to put the Irish back in front overall 3-2.
With Notre Dame needing just one more point, Chase Thompson and Jamie Corsillo were both in 3rd sets. Thompson, at #3, started slowly and could not come back to get on the right side of the score, dropping the first set 6-4 but responding to win the second 6-3. On the court next door, Corsillo, playing #5, gutted out the longest first set of all the courts with a 7-6 win but just slipped to lose the second 6-4.
Thompson built a 5-1 lead in the final act as Corsillo was just beginning his third set. Despite early match point chances, the Northwestern #3 player would push all the way back and take the lead at 6-5 in the match. Thompson faced a match point serving at 5-6 but evened it up as the opponent hit the ball wide on deuce point. An up and down final tiebreak saw the Irish sophomore facing match point at 5-6 but again a clutch point there was the beginning of a 3 point swing that saw Thompson secure the match 8-6 in the tiebreak. The 4-2 win over Northwestern moves the team to 10-2 on the year as they head into conference play.
Up Next:
Atlantic Coast Conference play begins next week as Notre Dame will begin with their first two conference matches on the road. On Friday the 28th. The men will take on Georgia Tech at 5pm at the Byers Tennis Complex in Atlanta. Then on Sunday, a battle at #31 ranked Clemson will begin at noon in South Carolina.
Box Score
#50 Notre Dame 4 Northwestern 2
Doubles
Nad/Thompson(ND) def. Nordby/Casey(NW) 6-0
Corsillo/Zhang(ND) vs. Goli/Miller(NW) 4-2 DNF
Dominko/Becker(ND) def. Yang/Caldwell(NW) 6-1
Order of Finish(1, 2)
Singles
#39 Dominko(ND) def. Goli(NW) 6-1, 6-3
Nordby(ND) def. Zhang(ND) 6-2, 6-2
Thompson(ND) def. Casey(NW) 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(6)
Bengtsson(NW) def. Nad(ND) 6-4, 6-4
Corsillo(ND) vs. Miller(NW) 7-6(4), 4-6, 4-3 DNF
Llorens(ND) def. Caldwell(NW) 7-6(1), 6-4
Order of Finish (1, 2, 4, 6, 3)