Hoosiers rally from early deficit, edge out Spartans

With his team trailing 1-0 and behind a set on three of the singles courts, IU men’s tennis coach Ken Hydinger turned to his wife and said, “That’s the match,” signaling to senior David Bubenicek on Court 2.\nHe was not implying that Michigan State had the match won, but that the Hoosiers needed Bubenicek to rally from a set down against Alex Forger and win for the team to come away with their 12th victory. \nAfter No. 1, No. 3, No. 4 and No. 6 singles had finished, Bubenicek was still battling it out at No. 2, as was sophomore Peter Antons at No. 5. \nWith Antons 0-10 on the year when losing the first set, the Bubenicek match became even more critical for IU. \nAt 4-3 in the second set, Forger held serve to make it 4-4, but from there on out Bubenicek played very well.\nReeling off eight straight games, Bubenicek won 3-6, 6-4, 6-0 and sealed the Hoosiers’ victory.\n“I didn’t stop believing and I worked every ball and just hoped that it would turn around,” Bubenicek said after the match. “It’s a good feeling right now.” \nWith the match decided, Antons was still fighting on Court 5 against Michael Flowers. After failing to close out the match at 6-5, he had to duke it out in a third-set tiebreak. Antons fell behind early, then jumped ahead of Flowers at 4-3 and held on to win the tiebreak 7-4 and the match 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (4). \n“I’ve had a little rough time out here (in recent matches),” Antons said. “You just got to know it’s going to be a grind out there – just got to push for whatever it takes.”\nIU got behind early, losing two of the three doubles matches and then at No. 1 singles as top-50-ranked Nick Rinks defeated the Hoosiers’ junior Thomas Richter 6-2, 6-4 at No. 1. \nJunior Dara McLoughlin earned IU’s first singles victory at No. 3, 6-3, 6-1, before a 6-4, 6-2 win at No. 6 by Mak Kendall and a 6-2, 6-0 win by senior Arnaud Roussel at No. 4. \n“We’ve been talking a long time about grinding, and we’ve talked about not checking out, about playing every point hard,” Hydinger said. “We got in a bind on the doubles, and (Michigan State) had some momentum in some singles matches out there. And I thought our guys did a great job of keeping their composure and working through the thing.”