The battle-tested Drake men's tennis team fought to go 1-1 in their Indiana road matches across Friday and Saturday. Drake suffered a shutout 4-0 loss against the Indiana Hoosiers on Friday but bounced back massively on Saturday to defeat Purdue 4-3.
"Fantastic win today by the team," Head Coach
Ben Lott said. "Couldn't be prouder of the way we dug deep and fought our way through today's match. Matija and Markus stepped up big time down 2-3 and deserve a ton of credit for the way they closed out their matches. We felt very competitive vs Indiana, being up breaks of serve on all 3 doubles courts. The difference between the two matches was that we executed a little better when it mattered today."
Indiana 4, Drake 0
The Bulldogs began their weekend with a tough loss to the Indiana Hoosiers.
Matija Matic and
Oliver Johansson were handed their first doubles loss of the season in 6-4 fashion at the hands of Ilya Tiraspolsky and Michael Andre.
Matt Clegg and
Markus Bolin were also defeated, handing Indiana the doubles point.
Drake then dropped three singles duels, conceding the match to Indiana. Johansson, Matic and Clegg lost singles matches for Drake. As a result, Bolin,
Jeremy Schifris, and
Olle Sonesson Lidholt's matches went unfinished.
Drake 4, Purdue 3
After a shutout loss to Indiana, Drake bounced back to defeat Purdue 4-3. Schifris and Sonesson Lidholt won the day's first match 6-2 over Alexander Ekstrand and Mujtaba Ali-Khan. Purdue's Juan David Velasquez and Soham Purohit then took down Johansson and Matic 6-3, leaving Clegg and Bolin's doubles contest as the deciding factor for the match's first point. Clegg and Bolin battled against Henrik Villanger and Stefan Simeunovic and won 6-4 to give Drake the first point of the match.
Purohit quickly defeated Clegg 6-1 and 6-0 in straight sets to tie up the score 1-1. Johansson gave the advantage back to the Bulldogs with a 6-2, 7-6 (6) victory over Velasquez. Purdue then titled the advantage to their side by securing back-to-back victories. Sonesson Lidholt and Schifris both lost in straight sets to give Purdue a temporary 3-2 lead.
Facing the potential of leaving Indiana with two losses, the Bulldogs battled to win the final two matches of the contest. Matic won the first set against Ekstrand in a tie-breaker, then lost the second set 4-6. Matic clutched up for his team and dominated the final set 6-1 to even the contest 3-3 against Purdue. Bolin, who held a 5-1 singles record before the Purdue contest, delivered the Bulldogs the victory that put them over the edge. Bolin trounced Ali-Khan in the first set 6-1, suffered a 4-6 loss in the second set and won the final set 6-4 to cap off Drake's Indiana tour with a win.
Result vs. Indiana
Results vs. Purdue
