Badgers drop late rally to fall to Middle Tennessee State, staying winless on the road

The Wisconsin men's tennis team is now 6-6 overall and 0-1 in Big Ten play after losing to Middle Tennessee State on Saturday. The Badgers remain winless on the road this season after falling 6-5 to the Blue Raiders in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The loss ended a weekend that began with a dominant home performance against Penn.

Wisconsin opened the weekend on Friday afternoon by defeating Penn 6-1 at Nielsen Tennis Center. The Badgers had never beaten the Quakers in program history prior to this match. The team secured the doubles point with a 6-1 win from seniors Josef Dodridge and Osgar O'Hoisin, who remain undefeated as a pair this season. Sophomores Daniel Soyfer and Chase Colton added a 6-2 victory in the second doubles match.

In singles, Wisconsin won four of the five matches. Colton, Soyfer, and Dodridge each took their matches in straight sets. Freshman Jesper Freimuth won 6-2 and 6-3. O'Hoisin required three sets to finish 7-5, 4-6, 10-2.

The team traveled to Middle Tennessee State for Saturday's match against a squad that had not lost at home this season. Wisconsin took an early 2-0 lead in doubles, with Dodridge and O'Hoisin defeating Chris Edge and Tom Moonen 6-4. Senior Chema Carranza and Freimuth beat Glan Issa and Jan Porteset 6-2. Soyfer extended the lead to 3-1 with a 6-4, 6-3 singles win, improving his personal record to 10-0 in singles matches this season.

Middle Tennessee State won the next three singles matches to take a 4-3 lead. Dodridge tied the match at 4-4 with a 7-6, 6-1 victory. The final point at No. 2 singles went to Carranza against Tom Moonen. Carranza lost the first set 6-7 in a tiebreak but won the second 6-1.

In the deciding third set, Carranza led 5-4. Moonen won the final three points to take the set 7-5 and clinch the match for Middle Tennessee State. Head coach Danny Westerman acknowledged the difficulty of the result for the team. "This one stings. We need to keep working. We put ourselves in these situations so we can eventually get over the hump," Westerman told UWBadgers.com.

Wisconsin will return to Nielsen Tennis Center next weekend for a Sunday doubleheader against Cornell and UW-Green Bay.