Wisconsin Tennis Sweeps Green Bay and Bradley to Stay Perfect at 6-0

Wisconsin's women's tennis team kept its unbeaten record intact on Saturday, winning both ends of a doubleheader by identical 7-0 scores. The Badgers beat Bradley in the first match and then shut out Green Bay, moving to 6-0 on the season.

The result gives Wisconsin its best start to a season since 1992. Green Bay was short-handed in the second match, with only five players available, and could not keep pace with the Badgers.

Wisconsin set the tone in doubles. Freshman MaryAnn Rompf and senior Kelsey Grambeau beat Theresa Tebon and Tallie Piaskowski 6-1. Sophomore Melissa Pick and freshman Lexi Keberle then won 6-0 over Maria Neff and Samm Pedersen.

The momentum carried into singles, where no Wisconsin player dropped a set. Keberle, at first singles, beat Tebon 6-1, 6-1. She is unbeaten in both singles and doubles and now holds a combined record of 7-0.

Rompf took the second singles match over Piaskowski, 6-3, 6-1. Michelle Linden won at third singles against Sterre Tijssens, 6-1, 6-0. Pick shut out Neff 6-0, 6-0. At fifth singles, Christina Zordani beat Pedersen 6-0, 6-1 to improve to 5-0 in singles this season.

Head coach Kelcy McKenna credited the performance to factors the team can control. "They did a great job with the controlables: their attitude, their effort and their energy," McKenna said. "Those three things are extremely important to our success."

To sustain that level, McKenna said the team has to "concentrate on doing the little things right in practice and making sure everyone is managing the details in the day to day drills and match simulations to make sure we're ready moving ahead to National Indoors and the rest of our Spring."

McKenna also pointed to areas to sharpen despite the perfect record, starting with doubles. "We need to do a little bit of a better job cleaning up our doubles in terms of serves and returns, making sure that we're the first team to be aggressive, also making sure we're hitting our spots on service plays," she said.

She added that the team must protect its advantage when it wins the doubles point. "We have to make sure as we move into singles, if we do have the doubles point, that we carry the momentum with us and try to be gritty and not give away free points," McKenna said.

Wisconsin's next match is scheduled for Feb. 9-12, when the Badgers host the National Team Indoor Championship. The team will try to extend its unbeaten start there.