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Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

Men’s Tennis defeats Western Illinois in opener

The Marquette men’s tennis team defeated Western Illinois Saturday afternoon at the Helfaer Tennis Stadium in straight sets to open the season. The Golden Eagles started the day by taking the doubles point and then followed that up with all six singles points winning 7-0.

The freshman/senior tandem of Jose Carlos Gutierrez Crowley and Mark Rutherford won their set 8-2 while Niko Boulieris/Jonahthan Schwerin and Drake Kakar/Otavio Perim won their sets 8-4 each.

Head coach Steve Rodecap was pleased with the way that his doubles teams played really well despite the absences of key players Dusan Medan and Jacob Straus, who were omitted from the lineup to give some of the younger players a chance to play.

“I thought (Crowley/Rutherford) were real good,” Rodecap said. “I thought they were real sharp and I can see them playing well. And a lot of that is (Rutherford) is left-handed so he can put his forehand in the center and (Crowley) is really good on the outside. They are going to see a lot of playing time together.”

The Golden Eagles continued their dominant campaign during singles play. Rutherford was the player to seal the win after defeating his opponent 6-2, 6-2 and believes this win was a just what the team needed to start the season, especially for the younger players.

“It’s nice to get off to a good start,” he said. “We have tons of matches coming up and we play four matches in the next week or so. (The win) was definitely a big boost.”

Junior Jose Manuel Munoz was a late addition to the starting line-up, replacing Medan, but made the most of his call-up by defeating his Western Illinois opponent 6-3, 6-1.

“It was the first match and we needed to get it done,” Munoz said. I just look forward to keeping it up. We need to keep playing solid. We need the doubles points because those are crucial. From there, we just need to do our best no matter who we are playing.”

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