The Indiana men’s tennis team traveled to Louisville, Kentucky, on Saturday to face the University of Louisville in its ninth match of the season and first road contest. The Hoosiers lost the match 4-0 and only won two total sets on the day.
Head coach Jeremy Wurtzman spoke Feb. 20 ahead of the Hoosiers’ first away match of the season.
“Louisville has a great program, and it’s a tough place to play,” Wurtzman said. “We’re gonna go in with the expectation of learning and having a growth mindset in starting to play our away matches.”
Being away from Bloomington was not the only disadvantage the Hoosiers faced. Louisville’s players maintained their dominance for the majority of the match, especially after securing the doubles point.
Louisville junior Etienne Donnet secured a 6-2, 6-0 win over Indiana senior Carson Haskins at the No. 1 singles spot to give the Cardinals their first singles point. Indiana sophomores Ilya Tiraspolsky and Jagger Saylor then fell to Louisville seniors Tin Chen 2-6, 3-6 and David Mizrahi 4-6, 3-6, respectively.
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Indiana seniors Luka Vukovic and Vikash Singh had their matches left unfinished after Louisville clinched their fourth point of the afternoon. Vukovic trailed senior Sergio Hernandez 4-6, 3-5 at the No. 4 spot. At No. 5, Singh notched an incomplete score of 3-6, 3-2 against Louisville freshman Natan Rodrigues.
Senior Patrick Fletchall, who has played at the No. 2 singles position for the Hoosiers in recent matches, had a stronger start than the rest of his teammates. He won the first set against Louisville senior Josh Howard-Tripp 7-6 (9-7) and grabbed a 3-2 edge in the second before the match was stopped and ruled as unfinished due to the other singles results.
Fletchall’s singles play has been some of the best of all the Hoosier players throughout the first month of the spring season. So far, he is 4-3 with two additional unfinished matches under his belt, both of which he had secured an advantage.
Fletchall and sophomore Jagger Saylor teamed up for a 6-3 win in the No. 2 doubles match against Louisville senior Alex Wesbrooks and Donnet, but Indiana ultimately couldn’t secure the doubles point after falling short in the other two doubles matches.
Saturday’s outcome marks the third consecutive win against a Big Ten opponent for the Cardinals. They defeated Michigan State 6-1 on Feb. 12 and Purdue 7-0 on Feb. 20.
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While a loss is rarely encouraging, Saturday’s can help the Hoosiers gauge where they stand amongst some of their conference rivals for the first time. As far as a difficult match against this Atlantic Coast Conference opponent goes, Indiana, Michigan State and Purdue find themselves in the same boat.
The Hoosiers have four matches remaining before Big Ten play commences, the first of which will come against Illinois State University on March 4 back in Bloomington.
