Illinois men’s tennis wrapped up its three-game away streak against Northwestern on April 8. The match was close to start to finish but saw Northwestern get the slight edge over Illinois as the Wildcats won 4-3. The Illini now sit 15-9 on the season and this loss means it is no longer possible to hit the 20-win mark.

Going into the matchup, each squad sat on fairly even ground in the rankings with Illinois sitting at No. 23 and Northwestern boasting No. 27. Despite not dropping a single point against Purdue or Indiana last weekend, the team could not carry that momentum into its meeting with Northwestern.

The match started off with Illinois’ top duo of No. 41 junior Hunter Heck and sophomore Karlis Ozolins’ first doubles loss of the season, as they fell in a relatively one-sided 6-2 set. Fortunately for the Illini, their No. 54 duo of sophomore Mathis Debru and graduate student Oliver Okonkwo responded with a 6-2 win over Northwestern’s No. 74 Ivan Yatsuk and Gleb Blekher. The doubles point was then decided on court three, where freshman Kenta Miyoshi and junior Alex Petrov fell 6-3.

Now heading into singles play at a disadvantage, the Illini needed strong performances from top to bottom if they wanted any hope of recovering.

Luckily, Okonkwo got Illinois off to a good start with a straight-set victory on court five, knotting the overall count at 1-1.  Heck then shifted the tide in Illinois’ favor with a straight set upset win over No. 54 Steven Forman, besting his adversary on court two with back-to-back 6-3 performances. Unfortunately, luck did not favor both sides of Illinois’ top duo, and No. 38 Ozolins fell on court one to even the match once again, this time with just three Illini still in play.

Northwestern took a commanding position from there, with Mroz falling in straight sets despite putting up a strong showing in each set and winning nine of the 22 games played. With the Wildcats now sitting just one point away from victory, hope was restored to the Illini on court three where No. 97 Petrov pulled off a dramatic three-set win that featured a dominant 6-1 first-set outing and a match-sealing 7-5 performance in the final set.

All eyes now turned to court six, where graduate student Nic Meister was engaged in the most competitive match of the day. The first set saw both Meister and his opponent reach six games each and unfortunately ended with Meister on the bottom of a 7-1 tiebreaker game. Not losing hope, Meister had rallied to flip the script on his Wildcat opponent and earn a 7-6 score of his own that was also decided by a 7-1 tiebreaker game. At the expense of Meister and the Illini, Meister’s opponent appeared to reach a whole new level from that point onward and cruised to a 6-1 victory in the last set.

With a final score of 4-3 in favor of the Wildcats, Illinois dropped to 15-9 on the season and 3-2 against Big Ten opponents. Overall, the match was tight from start to finish and was a hard-fought battle by both teams. In the end, the Illini couldn’t get the edge, but they’ll get their chance at another road win in two weeks when they take on Michigan State and No. 4 Michigan.

The Illini wrap up their home games next up as they take on the Wisconsin Badgers for Moms Day on Friday and Nebraska for Senior Day on Sunday.

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