It didn’t take long for the Michigan men’s tennis team’s third-ranked 2010 recruiting class to start making some noise.

At the early-season Big Ten Indoor Championships in East Lansing this weekend, the freshman duo of Justin Rossi and Barrett Franks claimed the flight ‘A’ doubles title after winning four straight matches.

“It was a really big deal,” Rossi said. “Me and Barrett have high expectations this year and we knew we could do it, we just had to play well and put everything together and stay focused and energized. And we did that, and came up with the title.”

Despite the implications of the tournament, which crowns a player as the Big Ten Champion, a slew of the conference’s top players didn't participate. Michigan didn’t send any of its top-three competitors — seniors Jason Jung and Chris Madden and sophomore Evan King.

"You know, this tournament is interesting,” Michigan associate coach Sean Maymi said. “Some teams send a lot of guys and others don't. When comparing to the bulk, I thought from my perspective that we had a lot of youth. We brought all our freshmen and our oldest guy was (junior Duncan Muil), and it's just as new to him as it is to the rest of them.”

Rossi — a blue-chip recruit — won three matches in the singles main draw, eventually falling in the quarterfinals to Ohio State’s six-foot-seven sophomore Peter Kobelt, 6-7 (3), 6-4, 6-2.

Michigan sophomore Chris Cha made the Round of 16 by winning two consecutive matches, but he dropped his next match, ending the tournament with a 2-1 record.

Another freshman, blue-chipper Shaun Bernstein, dropped his first match, but went on an impressive four-match winning streak in the back-draw. His run ended in the semifinals with a 6-3, 6-4 loss to Indiana’s Jeremy Langer.

The team recorded a respectable 12-10 overall record in singles and a 6-2 record in doubles.

“I think as a whole we represented ourselves well,” Bernstein said. “We had one quarterfinalist in Rossi, and the kid that beat him is in the final. Cha also beat a really good player from Penn State in the second round.

"No one made too huge an impact, so as a team we definitely need to improve, but to this point in the season, when we’ve all been worried about exams and stuff, I think we’ve done well overall.”

And though the team may not have shown its full potential, it showed it's ready to compete for a Big Ten title this season, Maymi said.

“I think we're right in the thick of things, as far as the level, in the Big Ten,” he said. “And hopefully by the spring, we'll be doing better."

This weekend’s event marked the end of the Wolverines’ fall season, with the lone exception of King.

On Thursday, King will compete at the USTA/ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships in Flushing, NY, the site of the U.S. Open. The tournament includes the nation’s top 32 collegiate players.

The Wolverines’ dual match season commences on Jan. 15, when Western Michigan visits the Varsity Tennis Center in Ann Arbor.