After sprinting to a 5-1 start this year, a winless weekend in Michigan dropped Northwestern (6-6, 1-2 Big Ten) to .500.
The Wildcats fell to Michigan (7-2, 2-0) on Saturday, 6-1, before getting edged by Michigan State (10-3, 2-0) on Sunday.
The Wolverines began their Big Ten opener by sweeping the Cats in doubles. Tommy Hanus, Willy Lock and Matt Christian all dropped the first set in their singles matches and fought back to win the second. Even though Hanus had a match point and Lock held serve until the last game of the match, none could close out the third set.
“(Hanus) played a really good game,” Lock said. “He played much better the last game of the match.”
The trend of missed opportunities continued the next day, as the Cats lost to Michigan State, 4-3.
After falling behind 3-1, victories by Lock and Christian evened the match, which put the Cats’ fate in Hanus’ hands.
Hanus had won the first set of his No. 1 singles match against Andrew Formanczyk in a tiebreak. Formanczyk won the next two sets , 6-2, 6-4, to give the Spartans the win — their third consecutive against the Cats.
“That’s the tough thing about No. 1 singles,” coach Paul Torricelli said. “You can play extremely well and still come up empty-handed.”
Hanus said he is still feeling the effects of a recurring arm injury that he reaggravated during the Oregon match on Feb. 19.
“I’ve had this for quite a while now, but I can’t really heal it until I stop playing,” he said. “I’m just going to have to manage it until the end of the season.”
Torricelli said the weekend’s close calls took a toll on team morale.
“It was really frustrating for the guys because they were right there,” he said. “We were right in there in every match in singles.”
One of the factors working against the Cats was the vast difference in the speed of the indoor court surface from Saturday to Sunday.
Lock said he had trouble shifting his game from the slowness of Michigan’s court to the quickness of Michigan State’s.
“Changing courts from one day to another is really hard,” he said. “You only have about two or three hours to adjust.”
Christian Tempke was the only NU player to win his singles matches both days. Torricelli bumped Tempke up one spot to No. 2 for the weekend’s matches because he matched up well against Michigan and Michigan State.
Tempke responded by notching his second-and-third straight singles wins.
“My strategy was to grind them down from the baseline and play more consistently than they did,” Tempke said. “I could get into long rallies with them and eventually win the point when they missed.”
After a rough start, Tempke has evened his singles record to 6-6 and said he’s beginning to feel healthy again after an ankle injury hampered his performance in the fall.
Added Torricelli: “We’ve got him back on track.”
Reach David Morrison at [email protected].
