The No.3 Ohio State men’s tennis team defeated two Big Ten foes this weekend in its first two outdoor matches of the season, beating No. 60 Michigan State, 7-0, and No. 23 Michigan, 6-1.
The team now has 72 consecutive Big Ten game wins under its belt.
OSU (22-2, 6-0 Big Ten) beat Michigan (10-8, 3-3 Big Ten), 6-1, on Sunday.
The Buckeyes won the first two doubles matches, 8-2, behind junior Chase Buchanan and senior co-captain Shuhei Uzawa, and freshman Blaz Rola and senior co-captain Balazs Novak.
In singles, Allare beat Michigan freshman Barrett Franks, 6-2, 6-1, to be the first singles match finished for the day.
Following Allare, Novak won his match, 6-0, 6-2, and sophomore Devin McCarthy won his match, 6-2, 6-4.
The last two matches of the day went into third-set tie-breakers.
Rola won the first set of his match, 6-3, but lost the second, 6-1. In the third set, he fell, 6-4, to give Michigan its only point of the match.
“It was tough because of the wind, and it was my first outdoor match of the season,” Rola said following the loss. “But Jason was a good player. He deserved to win.”
Buchanan struggled in the first set of his match, losing, 6-4, but came back in the second and third, winning, 6-4 and 10-7, respectively.
Friday’s game against Michigan State (15-7, 1-6 Big Ten) was a shutout for the Buckeyes, who won the match, 7-0.
Coach Ty Tucker said he felt the team did pretty well for its first outdoor match of the season.
“There were limitations, and the ball was coming down heavy,” he said, “but we did pretty good.”
Three wins in doubles action helped the Buckeyes cinch the win against the Spartans.
Allare and Kobelt played a strong match against Michigan State’s senior John Stratton and senior Jason Norville, winning, 8-2.
“We got a little lucky on the break points,” Kobelt said, “but we did pretty good.”
Doubles pair Novak and freshman Ille Van Engelen also helped earn the doubles point for the Buckeyes with their 8-1 win against the Spartans sophomore Denis Bogatov and freshman Drew Lied.
The closest of the three doubles matches was OSU pair Buchanan and Uzawa against Michigan State’s junior Austin Brooks and freshman Aaron Pfister, which the Buckeye duo won, 8-7 (11-9). In singles action, Buchanan came straight off tough doubles play to win sets, 6-1, 6-1, against the Spartans’ Bogatov.
Allare beat out Michigan State, 6-3, 6-3, and sophomore McCarthy won, 6-3, 6-1, against Stratton.
Matches between OSU’s Van Engelen and Michigan State’s Brooks, and OSU freshman Nelson Vick and Michigan State’s Lied went into a third set tiebreak before ultimately giving the Buckeyes the winning points of the match.
Van Engelen won after going 3-6, 6-3, 10-6 against Brooks, and Vick won his match after three rounds, going 6-3, 5-7, 10-8 against Lied.
Coming off these two successes, the Buckeyes will be looking for another win as they take on Notre Dame at 4 p.m. Wednesday at home.
