On Saturday, the Notre Dame men’s tennis team hit the road for the first time this spring to take on Illinois. Despite capturing the doubles point, the Irish fell to the Fighting Illini 4-3 score, moving to 8-2 on the season with less than two weeks remaining before ACC play begins.
Riding a six-match winning streak into the Atkins Tennis Center at Urbana-Champaign, the Irish started fast with two doubles victories. Junior Sebastian Dominko and sophomore Kyran Magimay combined to beat Mathis Debru and William Mroz 6-4 score in the No. 2 match. Soon after, freshman Peter Nad and sophomore Chase Thompson defeated Tyler Bowers and Zach Viiala by a 6-3 margin in the No. 1 match, earning Notre Dame the night’s first point.
The Fighting Illini would then shift into gear to start singles play, opening that portion of the night with three consecutive wins. Debru (6-3, 6-3) and Viiala (6-2, 6-2) each won comfortably, respectively knocking off freshman Luis Llorens Saracho in No. 6 singles and Magimay in No. 5 singles. The No. 1 match, which featured ranked opponents Kenta Miyoshi (No. 13) and Dominko (No. 33) also went the way of Illinois, as Miyoshi outlasted his opponent by a 6-4, 7-5 score.
At this point, the Fighting Illini were up 3-1 and one more singles victory away from winning the overall match. However, Notre Dame made it difficult, winning back-to-back contests to tie the score at 3-3. Thompson handled Jeremy Zhang (6-3, 6-3) while Nad outdueled 79th-ranked Bowers (6-4, 7-5), turning all attention to the No. 2 court, the only one that held a three-set singles match.
Senior Yu Zhang got the first set, winning 6-4. However, the 42nd-ranked Mroz answered with a 6-2 victory in the second set before repeating with a 6-4 result in set three to secure the team win for Illinois.
The Irish will continue their Big Ten excursion by hosting Wisconsin at 4 p.m. Friday and visiting Northwestern at 1 p.m. Sunday. The two teams are a combined 8-6 to start the year and do not appear in any area of the ITA rankings.
