Feb. 27, 2010
The 69th-ranked Purdue men's tennis team dropped another heartbreaking match Saturday afternoon as Western Michigan earned a 4-3 victory at the West Hills Athletic Club in Kalamazoo, Mich.
"We saw a spark in doubles today," head coach Pawel Gajdzik said. "That was a positive change from last week. Unfortunately, we did not show up at certain spots in our singles lineup. We quickly got ourselves in a hole, and you can't do that on the road."
Purdue (7-3) jumped out to an early lead by winning two of the three doubles contests. Western Michigan (8-3) grabbed the first match when Michael Calderone and Thomas Calderone won 8-6 over senior Paul Foley and junior Eric Ramos at No. 3. Seniors Slavko Bijelica and Branko Kuzmanovic took down Zeyad Montasser and Kazuya Komada 8-3 at No. 1 to even the match. Senior P.J. Rose and sophomore Thomas Wilson clinched the point with an 8-5 defeat of Casey Cullen and Pablo Olivarez at No. 2.
The Broncos jumped out to a huge advantage as the match moved to singles and they took the first three decisions. Brad Noel earned the first victory with a 6-2, 6-0 win over Wilson at No. 6. Komada was the next to win as he picked up a 6-1, 7-5 decision over Rose at No. 1. Olivarez brought Western Michigan one win away from victory with his 6-4, 6-4 win at No. 3 over Ramos.
The Boilermakers refused to go quietly, however, and reeled off two straight victories to tie the match. Foley won his team-leading eighth singles match this season by defeating Cullen 6-4, 7-5 at No. 5. Bijelica prevailed in a hard-fought match with a 6-3, 6-7 (6), 7-6 (4) defeat of Michael Calderone at No. 2. The match came down to another three-set contest, and all eyes turned to the No. 4 position in the lineup. Simon Blomberg was able to outlast Kuzmanovic and propel Western Michigan to victory with his 6-3, 4-6, 7-5 triumph.
"I have to give credit to Slavko, Paul and Branko," Gajdzik said. "They fought hard to keep us in the match, and more than four hours after the match started we still had a chance to win it."
Each team has now won 21 matches in the all-time series. The 4-3 loss was Purdue's second straight by that margin after the Boilermakers also fell by one point to Illinois State at home last Sunday.
The team continues its stretch of three straight matches away from home and opens conference play by traveling to 52nd-ranked Penn State on March 7.