MADISON, Wis. – The Wisconsin men’s tennis team has a packed schedule ahead of them for its 2023 fall season, competing in six events across the nation. The fall season begins this weekend, as the Badgers are set to compete in the SEC/Big Ten Challenge in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The event is scheduled to run Friday-Sunday. Wisconsin, Michigan and Purdue represent the Big Ten, taking on Alabama, Auburn and Ole Miss from the SEC.
Here are five things to know as the Badgers open the season at the Big Ten/ACC Challenge in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on Friday-Sunday.
1. COACHES: Head coach Danny Westerman returns for his ninth season coaching at UW in 2023-24. Additionally, with his first year in the books, associate head coach Urban Ljubic is back on the coaching staff. Ljubic will once again use his 14 years serving as associate head coach at Minnesota to impact the Badgers.
2. RANKINGS: Wisconsin heads into the fall season with players ranked in the ITA’s Top-60 Preseason National Doubles and Top-125 Preseason National Singles. Gabriel Huber and Michael Minasyan are ranked No. 12 after winning the ITA Regionals Doubles Championships last fall. The duo competed at the No. 1 doubles position and were previously ranked as high as No. 24 in the country. Mihailo Popovic is slotted at No. 84 in the men’s singles rankings after posting a 14-11 overall singles record, the most wins in a season for his career.
3. LOOKING BACK AT 2023: The Badgers went 11-11 overall (4-5 Big Ten) in the 2022 spring season. The team was dominant at home in Nielsen Tennis Stadium, ending the season with a 9-2 home record.
4. NEWCOMERS: The 2023-24 roster features four new student-athletes with freshmen Collin Beduhn (Wayzata Minn.), Matthew Fullerton (Edina, Minn.), Oliver Olsson (Berlin, Germany) and Tomas Zlatohlavek (Prague, Czech Republic) all joining the team. Once high school rivals, Beduhn and Fullerton come to Wisconsin after asserting themselves as two of the best players in the state of Minnesota.
5. SCHEDULE: Wisconsin continues its fall season on Sept. 22-24 at the Milwaukee Classic in Milwaukee. In 2022, the Badgers had one doubles team and one singles player advance to the semifinals.
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