Michigan Falls to No. 3 Ohio State in Battle of Big Ten Powers

Michigan Falls to No. 3 Ohio State in Battle of Big Ten Powers

Site: Ann Arbor, Mich. (Varsity Tennis Center)

Score: #3 Ohio State 4, #4 Michigan 2

Records: U-M (18-3, 4-1 B1G), OSU (23-2, 6-0 B1G)

Next U-M Event: Saturday, April 15 — at Indiana (Bloomington, Ind.), Noon

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ANN ARBOR, Mich. — In a battle between the two unbeaten teams in the Big Ten, No. 3-ranked Ohio State defeated the University of Michigan men’s tennis team 4-2 on Sunday (April 9) at the Varsity Tennis Center.

The No. 9-ranked doubles pair of Andrew Fenty and Gavin Young cruised to a 6-1 win at No. 1 over Robert Cash and Justin Boulais. Fenty and Young led 5-0 before dropping a game. Ondrej Styler and Jacob Bickersteth fell 6-2 to Cannon Kingsley and JJ Tracy. At No. 2, Patrick Maloney and Nino Ehrenschneider fell behind 3-1 and were not able to recover against No. 8 Andrew Lutschaunig and James Trotter in a 6-2 loss.

After falling behind 1-0, Andrew Fenty rallied from down a set to win at No. 1 singles, while Ondrej Styler had a marathon tiebreaker and won his match at No. 2.

OSU took the first two wins in singles to stretch the lead to 3-0 before Fenty and Styler made it a 3-2 match. The Buckeyes closed out the match by winning in three sets at No. 6.

The Buckeyes went ahead 2-0 as No. 21-ranked Tracy defeated No. 25 Patrick Maloney 6-3, 6-4 at No. 3. It marks just the second loss of the season for Maloney. Maloney fought to push his match to three sets with things tied at 4-4 in the second set, but Tracy claimed the last two games.

No. 28 Trotter took a 7-5, 6-2 win over No. 45 Young at No. 4 singles. They went back-and-forth in the first set, with neither leading by more than one until Trotter took the last two games. In the second set, Young knotted things at 2-2, but Trotter won the last four games to take the match.

Fenty won his seventh straight singles match to put Michigan on the board at No. 1. After dropping a 6-3 first set to No 48 Boulais, Fenty earned three break points in the second set to win 6-4. Tied at 3-3 in the third set, Fenty won two straight games to push ahead 5-3. After Boulais broke him 5-4, Fenty answered with his own break to win the match 6-4.

Styler played a marathon match at No. 2 and picked…