Despite low ranking in polls, IU men's tennis continues to upset Big Ten's best

On paper, it doesn’t make much sense.

After going 16-10 last season and losing two-time All-Big Ten selection Lachlan Ferguson to graduation, this year’s men’s tennis team is 18-4 and sits atop the Big Ten with a 5-0 conference record.

Maybe it’s what the players said, that they set a goal to win the conference this year and are sticking to it.

Maybe it was bringing in the Pacific Institute, an organization that helped Alabama’s football team during its 2010 national championship run, to boost the players’ mental toughness.

Or maybe it’s simply the amount of work put in by IU’s returning players, who comprise the entire starting lineup, aside from freshman Claes Göransson’s No. 4 spot.

“They’ve been spending their summers on the court six, seven hours a day, working hard, getting up early in the morning for three years,” said IU coach Randy Bloemendaal. “So when you do that, eventually it pays off.”

“Eventually” could be this year, as the No. 27 Hoosiers are upsetting ranked opponents and have placed themselves in position to win the Big Ten and make it to the NCAA tournament for the first time in three years.

Senior Santiago Gruter said IU’s nine-match winning streak — which features victories against Michigan and Illinois, then ranked No. 18 and No. 13, respectively — may have been triggered by an early season loss to No. 12 Kentucky.

“I think Kentucky was a big match for us,” Gruter said. “Even though we lost it, it was probably a match we should have won and that kind of helped us pretty much believe that this team could go far. We could definitely get some results against top-ranked teams.”

The recent upset victories against Michigan and Illinois can be attributed largely to the emergence of the bottom of the singles lineup. Against the Illini, the Hoosiers lost the doubles point for only the fourth time this season, but bounced back to win the singles matches at the three through six positions to claim the match.

IU junior Stephen Vogl, who plays No. 6, said this depth extends beyond the starting
lineup.

“Our No. 8 can beat our No. 1 on a given day, so I mean that’s good,” Vogl said. “Knowing that, we have guys at the bottom of the lineup that can compete and win is huge for the guys at the top. It takes a little pressure off them.”

With the parity throughout the IU lineup, Gruter and junior Jeremy Langer, who play No. 2 and No. 1, respectively, have taken on the other teams’ top players with mixed results. However, as a pair, Gruter and Langer are ranked 50th in the national doubles rankings and have won 12 straight matches together.

Bloemendaal said the duo may begin experiencing similar success in singles this weekend against No. 20 Minnesota (13-2, 4-0) and Wisconsin (8-9, 2-2).

“We went through some tough stretches physically as far as just being sick and things like that at the top of the lineup,” Bloemendaal said. “And really, I think the top of our lineup is going to play well this weekend. I think they’re finally getting healthy.”

The Hoosiers just finished their five Big Ten matches and will play four of their last five conference matches on the road. Even though IU is the conference’s lone 5-0 team — Minnesota and Ohio State are both 4-0 — four Big Ten teams are above the Hoosiers in the national rankings.

Vogl said the Hoosiers are underrated but will just have to play out the rest of the season to show their worth. Bloemendaal took a more direct approach against the computer-generated rankings.

“I think they’re terrible. They don’t reflect where teams truly are at,” Bloemendaal said. “There’s a reason why in football and basketball they don’t go by a computer ranking. They put some human element into it because you’ve got to have some common sense.

“You see the numbers, you see who we beat, you see the season we have, and you do the research, and you’ll figure out that the 27 is just a number they’ll stick beside our name, and we’ll continue to climb in that computer, but that’s not a real reflection at this point.”

The team will try to continue its winning streak 4 p.m. today at Minnesota and 1 p.m. Sunday at Wisconsin. Bloemendaal said the match against the Gophers gives his squad another opportunity to make a
statement.

“I think what we have to gain is it shows the country and it shows the Big Ten that we can win on the road against a good team, but I don’t think it’s going to be easy,” Bloemendaal said. “I think Minnesota’s going to play well in that match.”