Marquette men’s tennis played its first matches back on campus since 2022 in the Sprovieri Tennis Complex — which is nestled inside the freshly renovated Wellness and Helfaer Recreation Center. For most of the team, it was the first time they played in front of a Marquette home crowd, with seven first-year athletes, along with juniors Blake Roegner, Ivan Vazquez and Teddy Wong. The team looks to set the foundation for the future as its young talent continues to develop.
Roegner has stepped into a “show, not tell” leadership role with the influx of young talent, exemplified by bringing home the team’s MVP and Most Improved Player awards at the conclusion of the 2023-24 season. Roegner has rattled off four consecutive wins at the No. 1 singles position, while also contributing at No. 1 doubles with first-year Cyrus Ahmad, who has notched a couple of wins playing at the No. 2 singles spot.
The Naperville, Illinois native attributed the team having his back to his early season success.
“A lot of our matches have been really close,” Roegner said. “We’ve been having a lot of battles so far, a lot of my teammates have been getting me through these matches, we’ve also got the women’s team coming out and cheering us on, if I didn’t have those people around me it would be tough, and I’ve got a competitive edge to myself that’s been driving me.”
First-year Kristian Blagoev, who grew up just down I-94 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, said that the team’s energy has been a point of positivity as the group comes into its own.
“I think it’s been a new experience for all of us,” Blagoev said. “We have seven freshmen; most of the days we have five freshmen competing out there, and we’re the youngest team out there, but we have a lot of energy. We all grew tight, some of these teams only have one freshman, we have seven, so everyone’s super tight, everybody wants to win for each other, that team atmosphere has been huge.”
For the past two years, Marquette played at Elite Sports Club-North Shore in Glendale, Wisconsin while the new recreation center was being renovated. Roegner said being able to play in front of a campus audience has built new excitement inside the program.
“It’s cool seeing everyone up at the top of the recreation center, having all of our fans out here, watching us, and we’re getting twice the amount of people out to our matches since it’s right on campus here,” Roegner said. “I think it’s really motivated us and given us something to work for.”
When Marquette battled DePaul, the reigning Big East conference champions, on Feb. 1, Blagoev rallied from an 0-4 deficit in the second set to force a set tiebreaker, which came down to the wire, but fell just short by two points. As the squad continues to search for its first team win, Blagoev said that competing in pressure situations will pay dividends down the line as the young corps continues to grow and develop.
“You have to have a positive outlook on everything,” Blagoev said. “Against Drake, I lost a 6-7 third set, I had it right there, so it’s like all these matches, you lose them right now, but we’ve been so close every single match, hopefully in the next matches we turn around, so that experience is huge,” “So, we’re all believing that we have a shot when it comes down to it, so as the season progresses, these close matches would turn our way.”
Marquette embarks on a three-match trip to New York to take on Big East foes St. John’s (6-0) and Georgetown (1-3), in addition to host school Army (2-2), Feb. 7-9 in a multi-team event. The next home match for the Golden Eagles is Feb. 14 against the IU Indianapolis Jaguars at 12 p.m. CST.
This article was written by Mikey Severson. He can be reached at michael.severson@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @MikeySeversonMU.