LOUISVILLE, Ky. - After its stop in Louisville, the men's tennis team now has lost three straight matches - each of them on the road and the last two by one point.
The Boilermakers' journey away from the Schwartz Tennis Center began Jan. 27 in Athens, Georgia, for the ITA Kick-Off Weekend. There, the team lost to the No. 5 Georgia Bulldogs and the unranked Alabama Crimson Tide.
Friday night's match against the Cardinals began the same way as the previous two did with the Boilermakers surrendering the doubles point.
Purdue's Athell Bennett and Dominik Sochurek fell first on court two to George Hedley and Brandon Lancaster 6-1. Louisville's C. Morin-Kougoucheff and Nicolas Rouanet then secured the first point for the Cardinals on court three, defeating Stephan Koenigsfest and Benjamin Ugarte by the same score.
Moving into singles, Koenigsfest lost his first solo match as a Boilermaker to Parker Wynn 6-2, 6-2 on court three. The freshman joined the team in January and won both of his matches at the ITA Kick-Off Weekend in straight sets.
No. 70 Ugarte then cut the deficit in half for Purdue, besting Hedley 6-4, 6-3. Louisville quickly extended its lead again, though, as Morin-Kougoucheff defeated Ricky Medinilla 7-6 (7-3), 6-4 on court one.
No. 49 Gergely Madarasz, whose doubles match with partner Medinilla was abandoned, earned the Boilermakers' second point with a 7-6, 6-3 win over Rouanet on court two. Madarasz and Medinilla are currently the No. 4 doubles team in the country, but have only completed one match together this spring.
On court six, Bennett tied the score at three all, defeating Clement Filho 6-4, 7-6 (8-6), and avoided the pressure of being the last match on. In Purdue's match against Alabama, Bennett found himself in that position with the score tied at 3-3; tonight however, Sochurek battled for the final point.
After dropping the first set 6-3 to Brandon Lancaster, Sochurek flipped the score and won the second by the same mark. The two then battled to six all in the third, but Sochurek was unable to hang in the tiebreak, losing 7-6 (7-2).
Purdue now stands at 3-3 with a home tripleheader to look forward to Sunday. The Boilermakers swept their first triple to open the season and will look to do so again against Drake at 11 a.m. ET and Indiana Tech at 4 and 6:30 p.m. All three matches will be available on live stream and will feature live scoring.