Nov. 10, 2001
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - The Purdue men's tennis team wasn't dissatisfied with its performance on the first day of competition at the 2001 Big Ten Singles Championships. Three Boilers advanced to the Main draw's third round in this weekend's event held at the Varsity Tennis Complex on the Michigan State campus.
Purdue sophomore Troy Havens and seeded juniors Andrew Wakefield at No. 7 and Scott Mayer at No. 10 demonstrated a strong showing in the main draw by advancing to the round of 16 today.
In the first-round of play, Havens defeated Ohio State's Ben Kirksey 6-4, 3-6, 6- 4, bringing the Boilermaker to the second-round and defeated Michigan State's Andrew Formanczyk 6-3, 6-3. Havens will face No. 9 seed Alexsey Zharinov of Minnesota in the third-round tomorrow to fight for advancement in Quarterfinals.
Purdue coach Tim Madden was impressed with Havens' performance today.
"He was our top performer, he played the highest level of tennis on our team," Madden said. "He endured a long match with Michigan State's best, Andrew Formanczyk."
Wakefield started first-round play against Iowa's Hunter Skogman and defeated him 6-4, 6-3. The seeded Boiler moved on to play Todd Stecko of Penn State and won the second-round match 6-2, 6-4. Wakefield will face Minnesota's Avery Ticer tomorrow in the third-round of play.
Minnesota's Eric Robertson was no competition for Purdue's Scott Mayer. The No. 10 Boiler defeated the Golden Gopher 6-4, 6-0 in the first-round. Mayer then defeated Suhandi Kuoswira of Wisconsin 6-1, 6-1 in the second-round. Both wins bring the Boiler to face Thomas Hanus of Northwestern in third-round of play tomorrow.
Purdue senior Laith Al-Agba and Derek Miller failed to achieve simultaneous goals in the main draw. Al-Agba won his first-round match against Mike Hodge of Michigan State 6-1, 6-1, but then lost to Matt Lockin of Michigan 6-4, 6-4 in the second round. Despite Miller's first round loss of 6-3, 7-6(10) to Jamal Parker of Illinois in the main draw, the Boiler defeated Penn State's Roddy Cantey 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 in the Backdraw bracket. Miller is slated to play in tomorrow's Backdraw match against Todd Stecko of Penn State.
In other action, Purdue freshman Sounak Chatterjee advanced to the quarterfinal round in the 7-8 bracket draw. After a first round bye, Chatterjee defeated Jim Crowell of Penn State 6-3, 6-1. The Boiler also defeated Mike Jonckhere of Michigan State 6-1, 6-3. Chatterjee will face Russell Bennett of Northwestern in the Semi-finals round tomorrow.
"(Chatterjee) played with a lot of confidence and was very strong," Madden said.
Full results can be found at www.msuspartans.com.
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