Following a nail-biting win Saturday, IU men’s tennis is back on the road to face Middle Tennessee State University on Friday.
This is the 14th time IU and Middle Tennessee have met. The Hoosiers are 9-4 and have won the four previous matches including 4-3 wins in 2015, 2018 and 2019.
The Hoosiers are coming off a thrilling 4-3 victory against the University of Notre Dame. The win brought IU’s record to 3-2, but the Hoosiers are still looking for their first win of the season away from home.
“We got to move on now,” IU head coach Jeremy Wurtzman said following the win against Notre Dame. “It's so early. We haven't started our Big Ten season. We're not even halfway through our out of conference. We got a lot more matches to play.”
Middle Tennessee is more experienced early in the season than IU, having already played nine dual matches to IU’s five. The Blue Raiders have a record of 8-1 and are coming off back-to-back 7-0 sweeps against Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University and the University of North Alabama at home on Sunday.
The one blemish on Middle Tennessee’s record is also the one opponent IU has shared so far this season — Vanderbilt University. Vanderbilt defeated Middle Tennessee 4-1 on Jan. 31 at Vanderbilt, five days after beating IU 4-2 in Austin, Texas. Both teams were successful in doubles competition against Vanderbilt. In singles, IU came away with three sets across the six matches, while Middle Tennessee won two.
Middle Tennessee has one ranked singles player and one ranked doubles pair. No. 121 Max Rauch is 5-2 on the season Middle Tennessee. Despite being the only ranked singles player, Rauch has had all of his matches in the third or fourth position. Preseason No. 76 Chris Edge is 7-1 on the season for Middle Tennessee but fell out of the top 125 in this week's rankings. Five of his wins have come from the third spot. At doubles, No. 20 Pavel Motl and Stijn Slump are 4-1 for Middle Tennessee, moving up from No. 48 in the preseason rankings.
IU has experience this season against ranked opponents, but little success. The Hoosiers are 0-5 in singles play and 1-1 in doubles.
Getting senior No. 94 Bennett Crane, one of the Hoosiers’ top singles players, could help them see success Friday. Crane is 1-2 on the season in singles play, falling from No. 66 in the preseason. He has dropped his last two matches, including one against his only ranked singles opponent, No. 5 Richard Ciamarra from Notre Dame last week.
Crane has been on the court in doubles action in every dual match this season, going 2-2 with partner and fellow senior Zac Brodney. Crane and Brodney have the one win against ranked opponents for IU, defeating then-No. 21 David Stevenson and Oscar Cutting from the University of Memphis.
Sophomore Carson Haskins has been IU’s best option on the court so far this season. Haskins is 4-0 in singles play, including the deciding match last week against Notre Dame, and 3-2 in doubles action alongside senior William Piekarsky.
