WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The Purdue men's tennis team is set to open the 2022 campaign this weekend with a pair of matches on the road against SMU on Saturday and No. 24 Oklahoma on Monday.
Head coach Pawel Gajdzik returns for his 13th season in West Lafayette with a promising and talented roster. Athell Bennett, the ITA Most Improved Senior from 2020 and the second-highest ranked player in program history, is back for his final campaign with the Boilermakers. Purdue returns six letterwinners from previous seasons.
MATCH INFO
Purdue (0-0) at SMU (0-0)
Dallas, Texas
Saturday, Jan. 15 | 2 PM (ET)
Purdue (0-0) at No. 24 Oklahoma (0-0)
Norman, Okla.
Monday, Jan. 17 | 1 PM (ET)
NOTES
• Entering their 106th season, Purdue is 67-37-1 in season openers.
• The Boilermakers have faced SMU just once before in 2018. Purdue swept the Mustangs out at Indian Wells, Calif., 4-0.
• Monday will be the fourth meeting between Purdue and Oklahoma and just the second since 1990. The Boilermakers are 0-3 all-time against the Sooners.
• Purdue's freshman quartet of Rohan Sachdev, Gabriele Brancatelli, Julen Morgan and Piotr Galus racked up 25 wins during the fall campaign, led by a team-high 10 from Sachdev.
• Athell Bennett went 4-4 in singles during his first semester back on campus, following a redshirt in 2021.
• Purdue rolled out 13 different doubles pairings in the fall, going 21-18.
• Milledge Cossu and Tomasz Dudek provided the top doubles efforts in the fall with a 5-2 mark.
• Junior Sebastian Welch earned a singles title at the Louisville Invitational in October.
• The Mustangs went 18-14 during the 2021 campaign, falling in the semifinals of the American Athletic Conference Tournament. SMU's roster features 17 players.
• Oklahoma was 11-15 in 2021, reaching the second round of the NCAA Men's Tennis Tournament. The Sooners are led by a trio of players ranked in the ITA poll – Mason Beiler (31), Mark Mandlik (49) and Jordan Hasson (54).