The Tradition Continues: Michigan Men's Tennis Crushes MSU 7-0

Submitted by BlueDragon on

 

Truth defeating falsehood was the theme of the day as Michigan shut out the Spartans. The doubles point was fiercely contested as both schools managed to win a game. King and Bernstein prevailed on 1 court for Michigan, winning 8-3. Freshman team Petrone and Zhu struggled early on and lost their doubles match on 3 court, 6-8. Among other problems both Wolverines struggled to land their first serves and had trouble finding traction in long volleys. The third doubles match was won by Michigan in the tiebreaker. Buzzi and Franks both made fine plays for Michigan at the net and behind the baseline. MSU's players struggled at times to hit the ball over the net and to get second serves in the box, a trend that continued in singles play.

No. 10 ranked Evan King made short work of MSU's tank at Court 1, prevailing 6-0, 6-2. Up 4-0 in the second, King had two break points against his opponent but yielded the point, settling for a non-6-0-6-0 score. Buzzi won the next match at 6 court, defeating his opponent 7-5, 6-3. Buzzi is looking very solid these days and has improved to 3-3 on 6 court this season. Zhu and Franks also won their matches in straight sets. The grittiness prize goes to Petrone from the match. Down 3-0 in the third set, the fabulous freshman rallied to win the final set 6-3. Bernstein has also made strides in his game recently. His serves, particularly in doubles, were much more testing than they have been in the past, and he got them in the first time more frequently as well.

The heavy rains the night before the match delayed the start of play for almost an hour as staffers with towels and leaf blowers were deployed to help dry out the courts. The match was Michigan's first home outdoor match of the season, the road series against Hawaii also having been heavily delayed by rainfall. Fortunately the Michigan women's team was scrimmaging on adjacent outdoor courts, preparing for their Sunday match against UNC. Michigan lost 4-3 in that matchup.

With Saturday's win Michigan men's tennis has now won its last nine matches against MSU, and boasts a 1-0 Big Ten record. At 8-4 Michigan needs five more wins to match its record from last year. Wins against Wake Forest and Hawaii to round out the nonconference season help take off some of the pressure, although Ohio is as formidable as ever.

Comments

Waters Demos

March 19th, 2012 at 8:22 PM ^

It's clear we're going to have to start living up to our end of the rivalry.  Perhaps by first getting the ball over the net. 

This leaves me wondering what really is our profession.  That's not to say there was ever a coherent answer to that question.

BlueDragon

March 19th, 2012 at 10:19 PM ^

"getting 1st serves in" and "hit the ball over the net" are not high up on the list. Some of the MSU players had decent forehands, but horrible, stiff backhand form. Michigan player sees the weak backhand form and starts hitting the ball to those strokes, leading to Stage 3, Profit. MSU's serving was very streaky as well; their players' wrist control seemed a bit stiff at times on serves and tough drop shots, or fast, short cross-court shots.

That said, we managed to have a peacable athletic contest on a beautiful March afternoon, once the courts were finally dry enough.

Hapa

March 20th, 2012 at 1:42 AM ^

This was the 2nd Michigan tennis match I've been to (the first being Duke this year), and it was great to get a sweep of MSU.  Overall, the games were much closer than the 7-0 score suggests, with three singles matches going into three sets and the doubles point coming down to a tiebreak.  It was a really good day overall, except for the Spartan fans, who would start "Go Green, Go White" chants in the middle of points during the doubles session.  Most of them left by the start of the singles matches. 

Michigan got out to a quick 4-0 lead with straight set wins from King, Buzzi, and Franks.  The other three matches were much closer, yet all ended in Michigan victories an hour later - all three matches finishing within a minute of each other!

I spent my time watching doubles and #1-3 singles, so I thought I'd give my 2 cents:

#1 Singles - While Evan King played a great game (and hit some sick backhand passes), I was shocked how bad the #1 singles for MSU was playing.  The kid was around 6'4", and hit maybe 3-5 service winners all game.  He did not respond well to Evan King's backhand slice; the MSU kid would often roll it right to King's forehand, and King would rip it cross-court to win the point 90% of the time. 

In fact, every time King would apply any pressure whatsoever, he would win the point due to an unforced error by the MSU singles player.  Couple that with a handful of missed short forehands, and Evan King cruised to a 6-0 6-2 victory in under an hour.   I hate to pick on any player, but that was the worst performance I've seen from a D-I 1st singles player. 

#2 Singles - The MSU player was a consistent baseliner without any big weapons, and gave Bernstein a pretty hard time.  Bernstein won most of the shorter exchanges and used his forehand to overpower his opponent early in the points.  Berinstein's backhand was inconsistent throughout the game, and he was losing most of the longer rallies in the match (especially those with backhand exchanges). 

For some reason, the MSU player did not abuse Bernstein's backhand nearly enough, and he let Berinstein play to his strengths with his forehand.  This is a game that MSU matched up very well in and probably should have won if the MSU player gave any thought to his opponent's weaknesses.  The match went to three sets and was decided by Bernstein's forehand overpowering the MSU player. 

#3 Singles - GRITGRITGRIT.  Petrone was clearly off for most of the match, slightly misfiring on his backhands throughout the day.   I was impressed by the MSU player (nicknamed "Bogey"), who played a very smart counterpunching game.  He was content to play defense and wait for unforced errors and was not afraid to be agressive if Petrone started playing passively and tight. 

As mentioned above, Petrone was down 3-0 in the final set and was clearly frustrated with his inconsistency from the baseline.  Eventually, something clicked, and he began playing a smart agressive game to take the final set 6-3.  In the two times I've seen Petrone play, I've been very impressed by his game.  He can definetely get down on himself at times, but he showed great mental toughness against a solid opponent.