Men’s tennis sweeps Murray State, Dayton

John Rowland

After suffering its first loss of the season, the 49th ranked UK men’s tennis team (8-1) bounced back with 6-0 sweeps against the Racers of Murray State and the Dayton Flyers on Saturday at the Hilary J. Boone Tennis Complex.

Murray State would be the first match for the Wildcats on Saturday. All matches would be singles matches, as well.

In the first match, Ryotaro Matsumura (UK) downed Will True (MSU) in two sets:  6-1, 6-4. Then against Dayton, Matsumura downed Jordan Benjamin (DAY) 6-2, 6-3. Matsumura is 6-1 on the season.

Enzo Wallart (UK) would pick up his third win of the season as he defeated Marcel Ueltzhoeffer (MSU) in the second match: 6-4, 6-1. Wallart did not participate against Dayton.

On the third court, Austin Hussey (UK) handed the loss to Srdjan Trosic (MSU) 6-1, 6-0. Then against Dayton Hussey improved his record to 4-2, downing Carsten Fisher (DAY) 6-4, 6-2.

Hussey’s teammate, Gus Benson (UK) also climbed back to over .500 as he downed David Schrott (MSU) 6-3, 6-1. In his second match, Benson went on to defeat Zach Berry (DAY) 7-6 (2), 6-3. The first set go into a tiebreaker where he would come away with the advantage that would able him to best Berry in two sets. Benson now holds a 3-1 record on the year.

Jake Stefanik (UK) picked up a win in his second match of the season as he defeated David Hess (MSU) 6-1, 6-1 in the fifth match. Then against Dayton, the sixth match would pit Stefanik (UK) against Lorenzo Rollhauser (DAY), where Stefanik would defeat Rollhauser 6-0, 6-4 on his way to a 3-0 record on the year.

Competing in the sixth match against Murray State, Kevin Lai (UK) defeated Javier Villar (MSU) 6-2, 6-1. This would be his first singles match of the season and would record his 40th career victory in singles play. Lai did not compete in the Dayton match.

In the UK-Dayton match, No. 79 William Bushamuka (UK) defeated Bernardo Sanson (DAY) 6-3, 6-0. Bushamuka has seen his fair share of impressive victories on the season, as he has previously knocked off Virginia’s 11th ranked Ryan Shane and 12th ranked Nicholas Alvarez of Duke.

In the fifth match against Dayton, Charles Minc (UK) earned the victory in tiebreaker and would make quick work in the second set as he collected a 7-6 (1), 6-2 victory Simon Jayarman (DAY).

UK returns to action February 13 against No. 25 Northwestern in Chicago.