University of Minnesota Athletics
Men's Tennis Wraps Up Regular Season at Home
4/16/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
Minnesota concludes its men's tennis season this weekend with home matches against Illinois and Purdue at the Baseline Tennis Center.
The Gophers take on 17th-ranked Illinois on Friday at 3 p.m. and then wrap up the regular season against Purdue on Sunday at noon. It is the final weekend of play prior to the Big Ten Championships, which begin on Thursday at Iowa. Minnesota currently sits in seventh place in the Big Ten with a 3-5 conference mark and 5-15 overall record. The Gophers can finish as high as fifth in the standings, but would lose out on tiebreakers for one of the top five seeds and a first-round bye.
Live stats will be available for Friday's match against Illinois. A link will be available on gophersports.com at the time of the match.
Senior Raoul Schwark is ranked 92nd in the country for the Gophers and owns a 22-12 season record. He has faced ranked opponents in 14 of his last 19 matches and will see one of the nation's best again on Friday when he faces 13th-ranked Ryan Rowe from Illinois. Schwark and classmate Pierre Dumas will play their final home matches on Sunday.
Tobias Wernet had a six-match winning streak snapped in a three-set loss to Wisconsin on Sunday, dropping him to 14-7 overall for the season. Playing primarily at No. 2 singles, Wernet is 6-2 in Big Ten matches and five of his seven losses this season have come against ranked opponents.
Illinois enters the weekend at 14-7 overall and 6-2 in the Big Ten. In addition to Rowe, the Illini feature another talented senior in 53rd-ranked Ruben Gonzales. Rowe and Billy Heiser are the eighth-ranked doubles tandem in the country. The Illini have beaten Minnesota 18 straight times dating to 1996.
Purdue is currently 4-14 overall and 2-6 in the Big Ten. The Gophers and Boilermakers unofficially met as part of the Purdue Invitational in January with Purdue winning four singles matches and two doubles matches against a shorthanded Gophers' squad. The Boilermakers knocked Minnesota out in the first round of last year's Big Ten tournament.
