Michigan men's tennis advances to second round of NCAA Tourney with win over Toledo

Ann Arbor — The Michigan men’s tennis team has put added attention in practice to its doubles play the last month, and it showed during its NCAA Tournament first-round match.

Michigan, the No. 7 seed, advanced to the second round with a 4-0 victory over Toledo (18-6) on Saturday at the Varsity Tennis Courts. The Wolverines (25-4) will face Cal, a 4-1 winner over LSU, at 1 p.m. Sunday with a Super Regional berth on the line.

In college tennis, the team that wins two of the three doubles courts earns one point, which means to win the match, it must win three singles courts. Michigan is now 20-0 when it wins the doubles point.

“It’s been our focus for the last month because we had a time there in the season when we were really struggling with it,” Michigan coach Adam Steinberg said. “The strength of our team for the past few years has been our doubles, so it’s been a shock to everybody, like, ‘Hey, what’s going on here?’

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“To be honest, I don’t think we practiced it harder ever here than we have in the last month, and it’s really paying off. It’s really helped. We’ve been much more competitive in practice with it, and it’s transferring into the dual matches, and we need that. When we get the doubles point, we are extremely tough to beat.”

Patrick Maloney and Nino Ehrenschneider won on court 2 and Ondrej Styler and Jacob Bickersteth won court 3 to clinch the point for the Wolverines. Andrew Fenty and Gavin Young played top court.

“It’s been dual-match intensity every day, practicing doubles the right way,” Steinberg said. “In college tennis, with the depth we have, it’s hard to find the teams that really work, so now we’re really set. These are our three doubles teams, let’s go.”

Bickersteth game the Wolverines their first singles point with a 6-1, 6-1 victory, Fenty won 6-0-6-3 on Court 3 and Maloney clinched the match with a 6-2, 6-2 win.

If Michigan beats Cal, the Wolverines will host the Sweet 16 match next week.

“Second round NCAAs, 32 teams left in the whole country, so we know it’s always going to be tough,” Steinberg said of facing Cal. “And we wouldn’t want it any other way.”

achengelis@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @chengelis