Saturday, 04/13/2013

LINCOLN, Neb. -- The No. 24-ranked University of Michigan men's tennis team ran its winning streak to five matches with a 5-2 victory at Nebraska on Friday night (April 12) at the Nebraska Tennis Center.

U-M won the doubles point for the second straight match, earning victories at the top two positions for the dual's first point. U-M's sophomore pairing of Alex Petrone (Staten Island, N.Y./Laurel Springs Prep) and Michael Zhu (Princeton, N.J./Keystone National) cruised to an 8-1 win over Bradford Zitsch and Dusty Boyer at No. 2, before senior Evan King (Chicago, Ill./Kaplan Prep) and Alex Buzzi (Key Biscayne, Fla./Gulliver Prep) secured the point for the Maize and Blue with an 8-5 decision over Andre Stenger and Eric Sock at the top of the lineup.

The Cornhuskers kicked off singles play with a victory at the No. 2 position, but the Wolverines responded with straight-set victories at the No. 1 and No. 5 spots to jump out to a 3-1 advantage.

King provided Michigan with its second point of the match with a 6-4, 6-2 triumph over Stenger at the No. 1 spot. With the win, King -- who comes in at No. 13 in the latest ITA singles rankings -- improved to 18-1 in dual-match competition. Shortly thereafter, Buzzi won his fifth singles match in a row, extending U-M's lead with a 6-2, 6-4 decision over Sebastian Florczyk.

Vlad Stefan (Bucharest, Romania) clinched the match for Michigan, rallying for a three set win over Tom Blackwell at No. 3. After dropping the first set, 3-6, Stefan found himself down 4-3 in the second set before winning three consecutive games -- including a break at 4-4 -- to force a deciding third set. Stefan and Blackwell held serve throughout the final set before Stefan earned broke Blackwell at 5-4 to secure the dual for the Maize and Blue with a 6-4 victory.

Redshirt sophomore Justin Rossi (Novi, Mich./Laurel Springs HS) claimed the final singles match off the court, putting together a late comeback to earn a 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (2) victory at the No.6 singles position. Down 5-1 in the third, Rossi won five of the next six games to force a tiebreaker, which he won via automatic default.

The Wolverines will wrap up their road trip on Sunday (April 14) against Iowa. The match is slated to begin at 11 a.m. CDT at the Hawkeye Tennis and Recreation Complex in Iowa City, Iowa.

Following are match-by-match results:

Singles
No. 1 -- No. 13 Evan King (U-M) d. Andre Stenger (Nebraska), 6-4, 6-2
No. 2 -- Dusty Boyer (Nebraska) d. Alex Petrone (U-M), 6-0, 6-1
No. 3 -- No. 107 Vlad Stefan (U-M) d. Tom Blackwell (Nebraska), 3-6, 6-4, 6-4
No. 4 -- Marc Herrmann (Nebraska) d. Michael Zhu (U-M), 6-2, 6-1
No. 5 -- Alex Buzzi (U-M) d. Sebastian Florczyk (Nebraska), 6-2, 6-4
No. 6 -- Justin Rossi (U-M) d. Andrew Dzulynsky (Nebraska), 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (2)

Doubles
No. 1 -- Evan King/Alex Buzzi (U-M) d. Andre Stenger/Eric Sock (Nebraska), 8-5
No. 2 -- Alex Petrone/Michael Zhu (U-M) d. Bradford Zitsch/Dusty Boyer (Nebraska), 8-1
No. 3 -- Shaun Bernstein/Justin Rossi (U-M) vs. Brandon Videtich/Scott Elsass (Nebraska), 8-7 DNF

Order of Completion: Doubles 2-1, Singles 2-1-5-4-3-6

Media Contact: Zach Eisendrath (734) 763-4423