University of Minnesota Athletics
Penn State, Ohio State Visit in Home Finale
4/13/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
The 24th-ranked Minnesota men’s tennis team wraps up its home schedule with two Big Ten matches at the Baseline Tennis Center. Penn State comes to town on Friday at 3 p.m. and second-ranked Ohio State will visit on Sunday at noon. The matches this weekend will be the final two regular season home contests for UM seniors Sebastian Gallego , Tobias Wernet , and Derek Peterson .
Last week, the Gophers split a pair of tightly contested home matches against Indiana-based Big Ten teams. On Friday, 23rd-ranked Indiana put a halt to UM’s five-match winning streak that dated back to March 5. Minnesota claimed the doubles point, but IU took four of six singles matches to get the win. The Gophers bounced back on Sunday with a 4-3 win over No. 67 Purdue with a doubles sweep and singles wins by Wernet, Brendan Ruddock , and Michael Sicora.
Penn State comes into the match having lost its last five matches, all in the Big Ten. The Nittany Lions began the season winning seven of their first nine matches and won their final four non-conference competitions, but have been unable to find success in the Big Ten. PSU sits alone in last place in the conference with an 0-6 record in conference play. Half of Penn State’s league losses have been decided by one point.
On the other end of the Big Ten spectrum, Ohio State is undefeated in conference action. The Buckeyes have dropped only three total singles matches and one doubles match—they’ve won all of their doubles competitions—in six league contests. OSU’s only two losses in dual match play have come to current No. 1 Virginia and current No. 6 Texas A&M.
Ohio State has a slew of ranked singles players and three highly ranked doubles teams. The latest ITA singles rankings feature seven Buckeyes: Blaz Rola (No. 5), Chase Buchanan (No. 12), Matt Allare (No. 43), Devin McCarthy (No. 65), Peter Kobelt (No. 67), Balaz Novak (No. 102), and Ille Van Engelen (No. 112). Wernet is Minnesota’s lone representative in the ITA rankings at singles. With a five-match winning streak and a 2-1 ledger against ranked opponents, the last week’s Big Ten Player of the Week is ranked 101st.
OSU’s Buchanan, the current Big Ten Player of the Week, is a part of two ranked doubles tandems. The Ohio State junior is ranked 11th with Rola and is ranked 66th when partnered with Shuhei Uzawa. Kobelt and Allare are ranked 12th for the Buckeyes. Friday’s opponent, Penn State, features Eddie Bourchier and Russell Bader, the 68th-ranked doubles duo, while UM’s Gallego and Phillip Arndt are ranked 77th.
Minnesota will cap its 2011 regular season with road matches against 17th-ranked Illinois and No. 60 Iowa before heading to Madison, Wis. to compete in the Big Ten Tournament.
Players Mentioned
