April 29, 2011
MADISON, Wis. - The Purdue men's tennis team fell in a close decision against the second-seeded Indiana Hoosiers in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament in Madison, Wis., on Friday, 4-2, at the Nielsen Tennis Stadium.
Indiana (23-6) secured the doubles point with wins at No. 1 and No. 2. Jeremy Langer and Santiago Gruter finished first with an 8-3 win over Pawel Poziomski and Krisztian Krocsko at the top spot. Stephen Vogl and Josh MacTaggart clinched the point with an 8-4 victory against Aaron Dujovne and Mark Kovacs at No. 2. The duo of Eric Ramos and Billy Heuer was poised to knock off Isade Juneau and Will Kendall at No. 3, but the match ended unfinished with the Boilermaker pair leading, 6-3, since the point had been decided.
Purdue (13-13) battled in singles play despite being forced to play without its top player, Szymon Tatarczyk, due to an injury sustained in Thursday's match against Iowa. After Jan-Frans Engelbrecht fell in just his third dual singles match of the season to Dimitrige Tasic, the Boilermakers picked up the intensity. In his first career appearance at No. 5, Poziomski took down Vogl, 7-5, 6-4, to narrow the deficit to 2-1. Ramos was next to finish as he picked up a 6-4, 6-4 win over Juneau at No. 4 to knot up the match.
Kovacs played his first career match at the top singles spot due to the injury to Tatarczyk and was quite impressive despite falling to Langer, a first team All-Big Ten selection. After dropping the first set, 3-6, the freshman battled back in the second with a 6-3 win to force a decisive frame. Langer came out on top, 6-1, to give Indiana a 3-2 lead. No. 108 MacTaggart clinched the win for the Hoosiers with a win at No. 3 over Krocsko, 6-4, 7-6.
Like Kovacs and Poziomski, Dujovne was impressive in his first career match in a new position. The freshman was bumped up to No. 2 and faced Gruter, another first team all-conference selection. After narrowly dropping the first set, 4-6, Dujovne came back in the second to win, 6-4. Unfortunately for Dujovne, the match was decided just after he leveled the score and would end unfinished.
Purdue must now await its NCAA Tournament fate next month.