Jan. 31, 2016
TULSA, Okla. ââ'¬" For the second time in as many days, the Purdue men's tennis team knocked off a nationally ranked opponent. The Boilermakers came in and defeated No. 23 Tulsa 4-3 on its home courts at the Michael D. Case Tennis Center on Sunday. Less than 24 hours prior they stormed back to stun No. 63 Wichita State 4-3. With the win, Purdue lifted its record to 5-1.
"It was a full team effort against a very good Tulsa team," Purdue head men's tennis coach Pawel Gajdzik said. "This was a first time to go on the road for some of our guys. For them to compete in front of a rowdy crowd against a top-25 team, they did a great job handling the environment. We are improving from match to match and I'm excited to see where we will be in a few months."
Unlike Saturday when the Boilermakers had to battle their way back vs. Wichita State, Sunday they turned the table and were the team that jumped out to a commanding lead.
The Golden Hurricane captured the first doubles battle at No. 3 with Dylan McCloskey and Dominic Bechard notching a 6-2 decision over Mateus Silva and Arthur Dobradin.
From there it was all Purdue with four consecutive victories spanning doubles and singles. Ricky Medinilla and Dominick Sochurek set the showdown at No. 1 up by winning at No. 2 with a 6-4 showing vs. Carlos Bautista and Daniel Santos. An extended match went to the Boilermakers' duo of Gergely Madarasz and Benjamin Ugarte, beating Or Ram-Harel and Fancois Kellerman 7-5.
Silva and Medinilla picked up their second wins of the weekend with straight setters at Nos. 6 and 3, respectively, to build a 3-0 lead for Purdue.
Tulsa mounted a comeback and tied it at 3-3 with wins at Nos. 5, 2 and 4, all of which were forced to a decisive third set. The Boilermakers' No. 2 Ugarte and No. 4 Sochurek each won the first set, but saw Bautista and Kellerman rally to win the next two sets, respectively.
The stage was set for an epic match between the two team's top singles players, Madarasz for Purdue and No. 51 Ram-Harel for the Golden Hurricane.
Two of the three sets were decided in the breaker, both of which were claimed by Madarasz. He took the first 7-6 and was blanked by Ram-Harel in the second 6-0. With the dual match outcome resting on the third set, Madarasz seized the opportunity and once again prevailed in the breaker to win 7-6 and get an upset of his own along the way.
The dual match victory marked the first time since April 2014 that Purdue has strung together back-to-back wins over ranked opponents. Those two 2014 wins featured the Boilermakers beating No. 69 Indiana (5-2) and No. 16 Penn State (6-1).
The next outing sends the Purdue men's tennis team to Chicago for a pair of dual matches Feb. 6. They'll first play at DePaul at 2:15 p.m. ET and then travel over to Chicago State for an 8 p.m. meeting.