MADISON, Wis.–The UW men’s tennis team lost a tough 4-3 match to the Purdue Boilermakers Sunday afternoon in West Lafayette, Ind. The Badgers evened their mark at 8-8 on the season and 2-4 in the Big Ten with the loss and have now lost four of their last five matches.
After Scott Green and Scott Rutherford defeated the 38th-ranked Purdue doubles team of Scott Mayer and Dan Swan, the Boilermakers rebounded with wins at both the two and three doubles spots.
With the Boilermakers up 1-0, the Badgers needed to win four of the six singles matches to win. Purdue proceeded to win at Nos. 3 and 4 as Purdue’s Carl McCafferty defeated Badger David Hippee 6-4, 6-1 at No. 3 and Andrew Wakefield joined his teammate with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Alex Kasarov at No. 4.
Behind 3-0, UW needed to win out, and it looked like the Badgers would do just that. UW won the next three matches with Danny Westerman (No. 1), Scott Rutherford (No. 2) and Justin Baker (No. 6) all notching victories to even the match at 3-3 with only the five singles matches still in doubt.
Scott Green lost to Laith Al-Agba in three sets, 6-2, 3-6, 6-2 as Purdue squeaked out the 4-3 win.
The Badgers have a tough conference schedule remaining to close out the season with matches left at home vs. No. 3 Illinois (Apr. 11) and No. 37 Northwestern (Apr. 14), at Iowa (Apr. 19) and home vs. No. 20 Minnesota (Apr. 21).