Feb. 15, 2009
The Purdue men's tennis team beat No. 73 Maryland 4-3 Sunday in College Park, Md., inside the Tennis Center at College Park.
"Maryland beat William and Mary on Friday so, after William and Mary beat us, I'm sure Maryland came in here expecting to win," head coach Tim Madden said. "This is the first time I've seen all of our singles go out with complete conviction. It seemed like they had no doubt this was our match to win. We just said, 'Let's go. This is our match.' I haven't seen our singles play this well all season."
Purdue (3-4) dropped the doubles point for just the third time this season. Maryland's 35th-ranked tandem of Andrew Orban and Boris Fetbroyt defeated junior Slavko Bijelica and senior Griff Nienberg 8-2 at No. 1. Sophomore Eric Ramos and junior Paul Foley evened the doubles and remained undefeated with an 8-3 victory over Mathias Sarrazin and Alex Aksanov at No. 3. Maryland (3-2) won the point at No. 2 when David Kwon and Nickolai Nielsen earned an 8-6 win over junior Branko Kuzmanovic and senior P.J. Rose.
The Boilermakers came out swinging in singles play and won the first four matches. Bijelica earned his fifth singles victory this season and evened the match with a 6-1, 6-1 defeat of Orban at No. 1. Purdue gained an advantage it would not give back when Ramos beat Kwon 6-4, 2-6, 6-3 at No. 2. Ramos, a native of Alameda, Calif., is 2-0 at the No. 2 position this season. Kuzmanovic picked up his first singles win in 2009 by defeating Nielsen 6-1, 7-6 (4) at No. 3.
Purdue clinched the match at No. 4 singles when freshman Roberto Cabrini took down Fetbroyt 6-3, 4-6, 6-4. Maryland got on the board in singles when Sarrazin defeated Rose 7-5, 6-1 at No. 5. The final margin was reached with Aksanov's 6-4, 4-6, 1-0 (7) win over Nienberg at No. 6.
Purdue won its first 4-3 match this season and earned its first victory over a ranked opponent. Entering Sunday, Purdue was 0-3 in matches that ended with a 4-3 score and had been defeated by two consecutive ranked opponents.
The Boilermakers open Big Ten play next Sunday when they host No. 45 Penn State inside the Schwartz Tennis Center at noon ET.