Huskers Rebound With Win Over Western Michigan

Lincoln? The Nebraska men’s tennis snapped a five-match losing streak with a 4-3 victory over No. 74 Western Michigan on Friday night at the NebraskaTennisCenter. The Huskers, who lost to Western Michigan 4-3 last Friday at the H.E.B. Tournament, turned the tides on the Broncos in this match, and improved their record to 5-7, while WMU dropped to 10-6.

The doubles point has been the Huskers’ Achilles heel as of late, as they hadn’t won it in the previous five matches, all losses. In fact, going into the match, the Huskers were 4-0 when they won the doubles point, and 0-6 when they lost. Head Coach Kerry McDermott shuffled the lineups on Friday night, and it paid off as the Huskers won two out of three doubles matches to take the point.

“We always talk about how important doubles is, and today again it was important,” said McDermott. “That’s what won them the match when we played them last week, and that’s what won it for us today.”

David Bendheim paired up with Tobias Schneider at No. 1 doubles, where they cruised to an 8-3 victory. The last two matches were decided by tiebreakers. Calin Paar and Mark tate, teaming up for the first time this season, lost their tiebreaker at No. 2 doubles, 9-8 (6). Hendrik Stahmer and Francois Van Impe pulled through with a 9-8 (2) victory at No. 3 doubles, giving the Huskers the crucial 1-0 lead.

Nebraska took a 3-0 lead after Paar and Van Impe both won in straight sets at No. 1 and No. 4 singles, respectively. Paar overpowered his opponent on his way to a 6-3, 6-1 victory. Van Impe took the first set 6-0 before forcing a tiebreaker in the second set after being down early. He was trailing 6-2 in the tiebreaker, but rallied for six straight points, including a textbook serve-and-volley on match point to win 6-0, 7-6 (6).

The Broncos wouldn’t go away quietly, however, winning at Nos. 3, 6 and 5 to tie the match at 3-3, leaving No. 2 singles as the deciding match. NU’s Bendheim took the first set, 6-3, before losing the second to WMU’s Kevin Hayward, 6-3. Bendheim turned it up a notch in the third set, winning 6-1 to give the Huskers the 4-3 victory.

“It was a good win against a good team,” McDermott said. “We’ve been competing very hard lately, but have come up short in our last five matches. Hopefully we can get some confidence for our match against New Mexico on Sunday.”

The Huskers take on the Lobos at 1 p.m. at the NebraskaTennisCenter on Sunday. The match is NU’s last in nearly a month, as they play six straight matches on the road before returning home to open up Big 12 play against OklahomaState on April 4.

Results
Nebraska 4, Western Michigan 3

Doubles
No. 1 Bendheim/Schneider (NU) def. Birchmeier/Norville (WMU), 8-3
No. 2 Cullen/Hayward (WMU) def. Paar/Tate (NU), 9-8 (6)
No. 3 Stahmer/Van Impe (NU) def. Calderone/Komada (WMU), 9-8 (2)

Singles
No. 1 Calin Paar (NU) def. Alex Birchmeier (WMU), 6-3, 6-1
No. 2 David Bendheim (NU) def. Kevin Hayward (WMU), 6-3, 3-6, 6-1
No. 3 Kazuya Komada (WMU) def. Hendrik Stahmer (NU), 6-2, 6-1
No. 4 Francois Van Impe (NU) def. Bryan Norville (WMU), 6-0, 7-6 (6)
No. 5 Alejandro Staub (WMU) def. Renato Melo (NU), 6-4, 6-3
No. 6 Michael Calderone (WMU) def. Tobias Schneider (NU), 4-6, 6-1, 6-2