CHAMPAIGN, Ill. ? UK junior Nate Emge rallied from a second-set deficit to provide the clinching point for Kentucky, as the Cats utilized a solid all-around effort to upset No. 2 Illinois by a 4-3 count Wednesday at Illinois? Atkins Indoor Tennis Center. The ground-breaking Wildcat victory, in an indoor setting where the Illini (14-3, 4-0) have a reputation for excellence, snaps the Illini?s 38-match home win streak dating back to Mar. 7, 2002.

?I?m really proud of our players,? UK Coach Dennis Emery said. ?Earlier on this year, we had a lot of injuries and illnesses, and we dropped in the rankings. It would have been easy to lose confidence and not follow through on what we felt, potentially, was a very good team. Luckily, we got some very good senior leadership tonight, kept it together and believed in each other.?

Kentucky (16-6, 5-3) got off on the right foot by capturing a hotly-contested doubles point. Illinois? Kevin Anderson and Pramod Dabir opened doubles play with a 9-7 victory at the second-doubles slot over UK?s Matt Emery and Marcus Sundh. The match at the No. 1-doubles position featuring Illinois? eighth-ranked duo of Ryler DeHeart and G.D. Jones and UK?s 12th-ranked pair of Tigran Martirosyan and Jesse Witten went to the wire and was decided in a tiebreaker. Martirosyan and Witten seized control from there, winning the tiebreaker by a 7-2 margin. Kentucky?s Emge and Alex Hume scored an 8-6 win at the third-doubles position to clinch the Wildcat doubles point.

?We knew we needed to win the doubles point,? Emery said. ?Our two seniors won at No. 1 after being down a break early on. They got it back, and Tigran (Martirosyan) played as good of a doubles match as I?ve seen him play. (Nate) Emge and (Alex) Hume have been solid for us all year.?

Illinois knotted the tally at one, as Ruben Gonzales defeated UK?s Nolan Polley in straight sets. The featured match at the No. 1-singles position pitted UK?s fourth-ranked Witten and Illinois? fifth-ranked DeHeart, who had split a pair of matches over the last five months. Witten dropped the first set, 6-3, but stormed back to claim the second set, 6-0. Witten and DeHeart remained on serve through the first eight games, but Witten managed a service break in the pivotal ninth game and served out the final game to claim the match, giving Kentucky a 2-1 lead.

Once again, Illinois fought back to even the match, as the Illini?s 24th-ranked Anderson defeated UK?s Emery by a 7-5, 6-3 count. At the fifth singles slot, UK?s Martirosyan pulled out a first-set tiebreaker. After trailing 5-2 in the second set, Martirosyan regained his poise and captured the final five games of the set to defeat Illinois? Monte Tucker and give Kentucky a lead it would not surrender.

UK?s Emge won the first set at the fifth singles position against Chris Martin and trailed in the second set but regained service to even the set at five. Emge produced a service break to take a 6-5 lead and served out the 12th game to clinch the match. Kentucky?s Hume and Illinois? Jones split the first two sets at the No. 2 position, but with the outcome of the match well in hand, Kentucky elected to abandon the match.

?When you beat Illinois, you know you?re beating one of the elite programs in the country,? Emery said. ?Their program won an NCAA title two years ago, made the semifinals again last year and the semifinals of the ITA national indoors this year. It?s a signature win for our program and for this group of guys who have gone through a lot of adversity. I?m very happy for them. Illinois didn?t lose this match; we went out and won the match.?

The win snaps a four-match losing streak to the Illini. Kentucky also defeated a second-ranked Illinois team in 1999 on the Illini?s home courts. UK nearly ended Illinois? 50-match win streak a season ago, but the Illini prevailed by a 4-3 count in Lexington. Illinois defeated Kentucky by a 4-2 margin in February at the ITA National Team Indoor Championships, which Illinois hosted in Chicago.

The schedule gets no less challenging for Kentucky, as UK welcomes No. 9 Georgia to the Boone Tennis Complex on Friday.

No. 19 Kentucky 4, No. 2 Illinois 3
Doubles

1. No. 12 Martirosyan/Witten (UK) def. No. 8 DeHeart/Jones (UI) ? 9-8 (2)
2. Anderson/Dabir (UI) def. Emery/Sundh (UK) ? 9-7
3. Hume/Emge (UK) def. Martin/Rowe (UI) ? 8-6

Singles

1. No. 4 Jesse Witten (UK) def. No. 5 Ryler DeHeart (UI) ? 3-6, 6-0, 6-4
2. No. 33 G.D. Jones (UI) def. Alex Hume (UK) ? 4-6, 6-4, def.
3. No. 24 Kevin Anderson (UI) def. Matt Emery (UK) ? 7-5, 6-3
4. Nate Emge (UK) def. Chris Martin (UI) ? 6-4, 7-5
5. Tigran Martirosyan (UK) def. Monte Tucker (UI) ? 7-6 (2), 7-5
6. Ruben Gonzales (UI) def. Nolan Polley (UK) ? 6-4, 6-1

Front Row (L-R):? Tigran Martirosyan, Jesse Witten, Nate Emge, Marcus Sundh, Associate Head Coach Greg Van Emburgh, Athletic Trainer Amelia Sesma
Back Row (L-R):? Head Coach Dennis Emery, Matt Emery, Alex Hume, Nolan Polley, Carey Rubin