Watching Tobias Reitz’s match against Will Davis of Michigan State, one would never know the sophomore went a full month without playing a singles match. Reitz showed no signs of rust in his return to singles, beating Will Davis in three sets to help the Wildcats defeat the Spartans 6-1. “I’ve been looking forward to it the whole time and I’ve been working very hard,” Reitz said. “I was nervous going into the match because I hadn’t played in a while and I wanted to see whether I could get back into my game style. I was actually just focusing on competing before I could get into anything, and I was happy I pulled it out in the tiebreaker in the third set.”After winning his singles and doubles matches against Michigan State, Reitz lost both contests against Michigan. He put up a strong fight in singles, winning the first set before finally falling 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.”I didn’t play as well as I can,” Reitz said. “I don’t think I can expect myself to play really well in the first two matches back. I’m happy overall with my performance, and I hope I prove I can play better in the next couple matches.”No. 48 NU needs a strong performance from Reitz as it heads to Madison to play an afternoon match against No. 33 Wisconsin.After upsetting the Badgers in Evanston last year, the Cats have to contend with a very difficult road atmosphere on Friday, as Wisconsin is 10-1 this season at Nielsen Tennis Stadium. “They are a strong team, a team that talent-wise is a top-20 team and they always play well in front of their home fans,” coach Arvid Swan said. “It is a challenging place to play. There’s a chance we’ll be outside, so that may negate a little bit of their advantage, but I expect them to play hard whether it’s in or out.”NU will be going up against two of the top singles players in the country, No. 17 Moritz Baumann and No. 21 Marek Michalicka. Both Baumann and Michalicka won straight-set matches in Evanston last year. “I expect them to play like they’re ranked,” Swan said. “Baumann is one of the best players in the country, and the other kid is also extremely good. But that being said, we can play with those guys at one and two.”Wisconsin also boasts two of the top doubles tandems in the country. Michalicka and Baumann combine to create the No. 15-ranked pairing, while Luke Rossow-Kantor and Mike Dierberger are No. 79.NU has tried 11 different doubles lineups without much success. The Cats are 24-of-25 in doubles matches this season, and have lost eight of 12 in Big Ten play. On Sunday NU returns home from a three-game road trip to take on No. 71 Purdue. The Boilermakers have yet to win a road contest and are 1-6 against top-75 teams. They will be looking to snap a four-game losing streak against the Cats. The Cats will rely on continued strong play from Sidarth Balaji this weekend. The freshman was struggling going into his March 6th matchup with Illinois’ Johnny Hamui, having lost five of six matches heading into contest. Balaji pulled out a dramatic comeback victory against Hamui which has been the turning point of his season. NU’s No. 2 singles player has now won six of his last seven. “I can play with the top players in the Big Ten,” Balaji said. “It started with the Illinois match. I won a close three-setter against a pretty good player and came from behind. I’ve been trying to keep that up in every match I played since then.”After losing five of its last seven, NU is looking to repeat last year’s late-season run. In 2009 the Cats started out 1-3 in conference play before winning five of their last six conference matches to earn the team’s first NCAA Tournament bid since 2005. NU began its run last year with wins over Wisconsin and Purdue, and the 2010 Cats are looking for similar results. “We’re going to need to have the same run as we had last year, and that’s not an easy task,” Swan said. “We’re capable of doing that, but we’ve got to beat some teams that are high-ranked on the schedule, starting with Wisconsin. We’ve had chances against teams similar to Wisconsin and lost the last three, four matches against highly-ranked teams. We can’t have that happen against Wisconsin.”

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