After winning its last match against Penn State on March 22, Indiana men’s tennis was looking to keep its momentum going with a rivalry matchup against Purdue.
The Hoosiers did just that, defeating the Boilermakers 4-1 Saturday at the IU Tennis Center in Bloomington.
Indiana started off hot on the doubles side. Redshirt junior Sam Landau and sophomore Braeden Gelletich kicked off the day with a 6-3 win at the doubles two spot. The duo is now 4-0 as a pair.
Following their match, the doubles one duo of senior Jip van Assendelft and redshirt junior Facundo Yunis got back on track after dropping both their doubles matches last weekend. They improved their chemistry and won 6-4, securing the first point for Indiana. Sophomore Matteo Antonescu and redshirt freshman Aidan Atwood’s match was left unfinished while they were leading 5-4.
In singles, Atwood looked sharp at singles five and took care of Purdue junior Stefan Simeunovic 6-4 in the first set. He looked even better in the second and won the set 6-3, putting Indiana up 2-0 in the match.
Yunis struggled with unforced errors in his first set, prohibiting him from winning important points and putting him down a set. However, he turned around to win the next two sets by scores of 6-0 and 6-1. After only allowing one game win in his final two sets, Yunis put Indiana in a position to sweep the whole match and send the team home early.
But the Boilermakers had other plans. At singles six, freshman Aryan Badlani and Purdue freshman Jacob Lee remained neck and neck the entire match, with both sets going into a tiebreak. Badlani fought to win his service points, but Lee took both tiebreakers and won the match 7-6 (7-1), 7-6 (7-5).
This put some pressure back on the Hoosiers, but thanks to Gelletich, who was facing a third set against junior Juan David Velasquez, they finished off Purdue. Gelletich ran his opponent from the baseline and won the third set 6-4 to secure the victory for Indiana.
The Hoosiers are now two games above .500, sitting at 9-7 while on a two-game winning streak. Next, they’ll be back on the road to face Illinois on April 3.
