April 23, 2009
The 10th-seeded Purdue men's tennis team fell Thursday in the opening round of the Big Ten Tournament to seventh-seeded and 54th-ranked Penn State 4-0 at the University of Michigan Varsity Courts in Ann Arbor, Mich.
"We've been through this so many times this year," head coach Tim Madden said. "Doubles came down to a point or two here or there. We just kept competing. In singles, we were down 3-0, and it still felt like we had a chance to win the match. Everybody continued to compete, and that's the important thing. At this point in the season, we're looking for the will to keep striving through adversity. We've been though so much this season, it would have been easy for us to not fight today. But, the guys can be proud because they fought hard right to the end."
Purdue (7-16) dropped a closely-contested doubles point to fall behind early. Brendan Lynch and Guillaume St.-Maurice defeated sophomore Eric Ramos and freshman Thomas Wilson 8-5 at No. 3. Purdue's junior duo of Branko Kuzmanovic and P.J. Rose evened the point with a 9-7 victory over Eddie Bourchier and Ryan Gormley at No. 2. Kuzmanovic and Rose end the season 14-8 in dual-match doubles competition. The initial point was decided at No. 1, and a tiebreaker was needed to finalize a winner. Jason Lee and Adam Slagter, the 78th-ranked duo in the NCAA, defeated junior Slavko Bijelica and senior Griff Nienberg 9-8 (3) to win the point.
Penn State (14-12) claimed the match and ended the Boilermakers' season by winning the first three singles matches. Lynch defeated Bijelica 6-3, 6-0 at No. 1 to push the Nittany Lions' lead to 2-0. The margin was extended when St.-Maurice handed freshman Roberto Cabrini a 6-1, 6-3 loss at No. 5, and the match ended when Lee won 6-3, 7-5 over Ramos at No. 3.
There were still three singles matches being contested when Penn State clinched the win, and Purdue had the lead in all of them. Kuzmanovic was leading Slagter 3-6, 7-5, 1-0 at No. 2, Rose was ahead of Bourchier 3-6, 6-4, 2-1 at No. 4 and Nienberg led Gormley 7-6 (1), 0-1 at No. 6.
Purdue, which dropped the regular-season meeting between the two teams 4-3 on Feb. 22, leads the all-time series 10-8.