Men's tennis bucks Broncos

The Michigan men's tennis team played Western Michigan on Saturday in a meet that put to rest any doubts about its potential.

It had been two weeks since the Wolverines last played. Prior to the break, the team had been off to its best start since 1995-96 and this weekend it needed to stay sharp.

It did, and beat the Broncos, 6-1.

"We were pretty crisp out there. You never know how you'll play after two weeks off, but all-in-all I thought we were pretty sharp," Michigan assistant coach Dan Goldberg said. "We had a couple of pretty good weeks of practice."

Keeping the team sharp was junior co-captain Matt Wright. Wright started out strong, as he and partner Danny McCain beat the Broncos' No. 1 doubles team of Ryan Tomlinson and Steve Pillon, 8-6. Wright then defeated Western's No.1 singles player Mohammed Dakki 6-3, 6-2.

"Our team has been working harder than we have all year these past two weeks - I know I have," Wright said.

McCain was also successful at No. 4 singles defeating Pillon 6-2, 6-2.

"I was well-rested and that really helped me out," McCain said.

Senior co-captain Will Farah, who had the flu, lost to Ryan Tomlinson 6-4, 6-3. Farah was trying to move into sixth place on the all-time career singles victories list. But on Saturday, Farah was the only Wolverine to lose.

His loss came after he and doubles partner Brad McFarlane beat the Broncos' No. 2 doubles team of Mohammed Dakki and Jeff Brink, 8-3.

"I lost my voice after the doubles match and have been feeling nauseous all day," Farah said. "I need to continue to work on my serving and volleying."

Another question the team had to answer was how would it rebound from its first loss of the dual season, a 5-2 defeat at the hands of Virginia. They recovered well, turning in an all-around solid effort.

Freshman Henry Beam added to his team high total of 13 singles victories after beating Jeff Brink, 6-4, 6-4.

"Just being around this group of guys and (these coaches) have put me in a great situation, there's really no better preparation for matches than that," Beam said.

Beam said that over the next few weeks he will be implementing new parts to his game.

"I think that you might see a change in me," Beam said.

The team will take another two weeks off before their next match, against Boise State on Feb. 28.

"It's nice to have a couple of weeks off now. Everybody has their own issues they want to address and its nice to be able to address them without having to play matches," Goldberg said.

The final lingering question is whether the team will continue to improve on its undefeated record in regional play.

A big reason for this has been the play of all three freshmen: Beam, McCain and Ben cox, who is undefeated in dual-match play with a 5-0 record at No. 6 singles. Cox pulled out a 6-4, 7-5 win over Kyle Gernhofer

"Nobody expected our freshmen to play as well as they have," Farah said. "Everybody is playing pretty well right now. John Long was playing (No. 6) singles last year and now is playing (No. 3) singles."

Against Western Michigan, Long defeated Fernando Garcia 6-2, 6-1 and won his No. 3 doubles match with Jake Raiton 8-2.

"Our goal from here until the Big Ten season is to see everybody continue to improve," Goldberg said. "We have a young team and we've made a lot of progress since the start of the season."

02-15-99