Feb. 14, 2009
The Purdue men's tennis team was defeated 4-3 Saturday by No. 59 William and Mary in College Park, Md., inside the Tennis Center at College Park.
"I'm still impressed with our doubles play," head coach Tim Madden said. "Number one was down two breaks and a serve and came back to win. You would think that would help our confidence in singles. If it did, it didn't last long. We were competitive in too many first sets, and then we had four players have the match taken away from them because they were not doing the things competitively that they needed to do."
Purdue (2-4) won the doubles point for the fourth time this season. Sophomore Eric Ramos and junior Paul Foley remained undefeated this season with an 8-3 win over Richard Wardell and Sebastian Vidal at No. 3. Senior P.J. Rose and junior Branko Kuzmanovic were defeated 8-6 at No. 2 by Ben Wirth and Keziel Juneau. The point was clinched at No. 1, where junior Slavko Bijelica and senior Griff Nienberg claimed an 8-6 victory over Ilja Orre and Dominic Pagon.
William and Mary (10-5) evened the match with Vidal's 6-4, 6-1 defeat of Roberto Cabrini at No. 4 singles. The Tribe moved into the lead when Pagon beat Kuzmanovic 6-3, 6-0 at No. 3. Purdue pulled even when Ramos defeated Marwan Ramadan 7-5, 6-2 at No. 2. Ramos, playing at No. 2 for the first time this season, improved his singles record to 4-1.
William and Mary tied the match for the final time when Juneau beat Bijelica 3-6, 7-6, 6-2 at the No. 1 position. Orre handed Foley his first loss this season and clinched the match for William and Mary with a 6-3, 6-1 victory at No. 6. Rose improved to 4-2 in singles this season by defeating Wardell 3-6, 6-1, 6-3 for the final margin.
Purdue dropped its fourth 4-3 decision this season. William and Mary now leads the all-time series 2-1. The Boilermakers return to the Tennis Center at College Park on Sunday to play No. 73 Maryland in a match that begins at 11 a.m. ET.