Sports > February 7, 2008

By Alex Botoman | Staff writer

Fueled by a raucous home crowd, the No. 15 men’s tennis team pulled out a narrow 4-3 victory over the No. 27 Wisconsin Badgers Feb. 3 at the Wake Forest Indoor Tennis Center.

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Junior Cory Parr follows through on a serve during his Feb. 3 match against the Wisconsin Badgers. Parr lost his singles match in three sets. (Andrew Imboden/Old Gold & Black)

The Deacons got off to a fast start in the doubles matches. Wake’s No. 21 ranked pair of junior Cory Parr and sophomore Steve Forman got their first win of the season by defeating Wisconsin’s No. 42 ranked team of Moritz Baumann and Nolen Polley 8-3 at the No. 2 doubles position.

Sophomore Andrew Brasseaux and freshman Iain Atkinson clinched the doubles point for the Deacs with an 8-3 win at the No. 3 position over Wisconsin’s Peter Marrack and Michael Dierberger.

The No. 45 ranked pair of junior Carlos Salmon and senior Mariusz Adamski completed the doubles sweep with an 8-3 win at the No. 1 position against Wisconsin’s No. 26 ranked team of Jeremy Sonkin and Luke Rassow-Kantor.

The singles matches however would be far more highly contested. Wisconsin got on the board by virtue of Marek Michalicka’s 6-3, 6-2 victory over Atkinson at the No. 4 singles position. The Deacons responded through freshman Jon Wolff’s 6-4, 6-2 win at the No. 5 singles position.

However, none of the other matches would come easy for either team. Wake’s Adamski took on Sonkin at the No. 3 position.

Adamski stole the first set 6-4 with a scintillating stretching drop volley on set point. The second set was a battle of breaks as both players struggled to hold serve.

Sonkin had the set on his racket, serving up a break at 5-4, but Adamski rallied to win the next three games, breaking his opponent at love in the final game to win the set and the match 6-4, 7-5, and put the Deacons up 3-1.

A Wake Forest victory was far from assured at this point. Parr, the No. 64 ranked singles player, struggled early in the No. 1 singles position against No. 39 ranked Moritz Baumann losing the first set 6-3.

Parr managed to claw his way back into the match by winning the second set 6-4. However in the end Moritz proved to be too much, winning the final set 6-3 for a 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 win that narrowed the overall match score to 3-2.

With the match coming down to the wire, the crowd grew even more vociferous. Sophomore Jason Morgenstern played a grinding match against the Badger’s Felipe Bellido at the No. 6 singles position. Morgenstern prevailed 6-4 in a tight first set that featured many long rallies.

In the second set, Morgenstern managed to go up a break at 4-2, but Bellido promptly broke back and evened score at 4-4.

After a hold to go up 5-4, Morgenstern earned a match point on Bellido’s serve and hit a lob over Bellido’s head to win the match 6-4, 6-4 and earn the clinching fourth point for the Deacs.

“I looked over and saw that the score was 3-2 so I knew that I could clinch the match for us,” Morgenstern said. “It felt great to see the lob drop in.”

Wisconsin picked up a consolation point with a 3-6, 7-5, 7-6 (6) win by the No. 100 ranked Polley over the No. 91 ranked Forman at the No. 2 singles position. Wake Forest’s win improved to 3-0 in the spring season and provided the confidence that they will need when they take on No. 3 ranked Ohio State in Columbus, Ohio on Feb 8.

“Wisconsin is a great Big 10 team and so is Ohio State, so this win was really huge for us,” Morgenstern said.

The Deacs will play at Ohio State on Feb. 8 and at Virginia Commonwealth on Feb. 10 before returning home to take on East Tennessee State and Brown on Feb. 16.