SEATTLE – Washington kept the momentum from Friday’s huge 4-3 road win over the Ducks by coming back home to sweep UNLV today at the Nordstrom Tennis Center. The Huskies improved to 6-3, losing just one set today in the 7-0 win over the Rebels.
“The guys are making progress every day right now, and it’s fun to see,” said Head Coach Rahim Esmail. “They’re committing themselves to getting better on-court, off-court, with their energy level. We’ve lost some tough matches but we really haven’t played any different in those matches, we just came up a little short. But we haven’t dwelt on anything that could bring us down, we’ve just focused on the positives and what we’re doing well.
“This weekend was a good indicator that coming off a tough weekend on the road, we played a great competitive match Friday at Oregon and competed really well today. So the guys are continuing to stick with it and value the things they need to do to get better,” Esmail said.
Washington opened the match with a convincing doubles point win. Brett Pearson and Nedim Suko had a 6-1 win at No. 2 doubles over Bailey/Garner, just seconds before Cesar Bouchelaghem and Dzianis Zharyn finished a 6-1 win of their own at No. 1 against Verboven/Dabic to clinch. Han-Chih Lin and Jim Hendrikx also had a 5-3 lead at No. 3 doubles when the match was suspended.
Moving into singles play, Dzianis Zharyn bounced back from his first loss of the season on Friday with a dominant 6-1, 6-1 win at No. 2 singles over Milos Dabic. Then Cesar Bouchelaghem made it 3-0 with a 6-3, 6-0 win at No. 3 over Anton Ornberg. Bouchelaghem is now 9-0 in dual matches.
Jim Hendrikx had the clinching win at No. 5, as he finished a 6-4, 6-1 win over Dusan Rsovac. Freshman Brett Pearson won a 6-3, 7-5 match at No. 6 over Eduardo Cohen to complete a 2-0 weekend.
Nedim Suko got past Aaron Bailey, 6-3, 6-4, at No. 4 singles to make it 6-0 Dawgs. Then in the closest match of the day, Han-Chih Lin played three tiebreaks at No. 1 singles against Maxim Verboven, and ultimately prevailed, 7-6 (5), 6-7 (5) then 10-7 in the super-tiebreak.
Next week the Huskies host Santa Clara on Friday, Feb. 24, then 4th-ranked Michigan comes in on Sunday, Feb. 26, at 11 a.m. The Wolverines are in the ITA National Team Indoor semifinals today, and could be ranked anywhere from four to one depending on how the tourney finishes.
“Santa Clara, we’re not going to look any further than that,” Esmail said. “But two good…
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