Ohio State men's tennis advances to Big Ten Tournament final

On the same day the Ohio State women's tennis team punched its ticket to the Big Ten Tournament semifinals, the men's team won to head into the championship match against No. 1 seed Michigan State, winning a very close match against Illinois 4-3 on Friday night in Ojai, California.

The Buckeyes beat the Illini earlier this year 5-2, but it was a close shave this time around with more on the line. The Buckeyes got off on the right foot by grabbing the doubles point with a 7-5 victory on court two from Alexander Bernard and Alex Okonkwo and a tiebreaker, 7-6(8), win from Aidan Kim and Bryce Nakashima on court three to go up 1-0.

The Illini made things interesting by winning the first two singles matches to take a 2-1 lead. No. 28 Gabriel Debru of Illinois defeated #12 Aidan Kim in two consecutive sets, and No. 16 Kenta Miyoshi downed No. 29 Jack Anthrop in two sets.

Ohio State tied things up at 2-2, though when  won on court four with a 6-3 set one victory and a 6-4 set two win. The result was his 15th consecutive singles victory, and it got things going back in the right direction for the Scarlet and Gray.