Feb. 7, 2010
The Purdue men's tennis team suffered its first loss of the season Sunday afternoon as 48th-ranked Vanderbilt earned a 7-0 victory at the Currey Tennis Center in Nashville, Tenn.
"We didn't capitalize on our opportunities," head coach Pawel Gajdzik said. "We got late breaks in two separate doubles matches, but we were not able to finish either one. We came out with good energy in singles and fought hard. You have to give credit to Vanderbilt. They came out hard and battled with their backs against the wall. For our guys, it was a good learning experience to see that we can hang with top competition. The final score doesn't show everything that happened on the court. We will come back home, regroup and get better."
Vanderbilt (6-2) jumped on the Boilermakers early by sweeping doubles with three 8-6 final scores. Charlie Jones and Ryan Lipman defeated senior Slavko Bijelica and sophomore Thomas Wilson at No. 2 before Bryant Salcedo and Vijay Paul, the 57th-ranked doubles duo in the NCAA, beat senior Paul Foley and sophomore Matt Manasse at No. 3. The sweep was completed at No. 1, where Adam Baker and Alex Zotov got the best of senior P.J. Rose and junior Eric Ramos.
As the match moved to singles, Baker handed Foley his first loss as a singles player this season by winning 6-2, 6-2 at No. 5. Jones, the 53rd-ranked singles player in the NCAA, gave Ramos his first singles loss this season with a 6-3, 7-6 (5) decision. Salcedo clinched the match for the Commodores when he defeated Rose 7-5, 6-2 at the No. 3 position.
Paul, the 71st-ranked singles player in the NCAA, earned a 6-3, 6-4 win at No. 2 over senior Branko Kuzmanovic, who made his season debut after recovering from an injury suffered during the fall competition. Lipman, the 29th-ranked singles player in the NCAA, battled back to defeat Bijelica 7-6 (4), 6-3 at No. 1, and Alex DiValerio brought the match to its final conclusion with his 7-6 (2), 6-3 win over Wilson at No. 6.
The loss ends Purdue's season-opening stretch of six consecutive wins, which was the longest winning streak since the 2007 squad claimed the first seven matches of its season, and evens the all-time series with Vanderbilt 3-3.
Purdue returns to the court Feb. 20 when it hosts Harvard at 11 a.m. ET inside the Schwartz Tennis Center.