It wasn’t what either team was hoping for.
The Purdue men’s and women’s tennis teams’ season ended with two eliminations from the first round of the Big Ten tournament. While it wasn’t the end of the season that either team was hoping for, the results weren’t unexpected either. First, let’s take a look at the men.
The men lost 1-4 to the Michigan State Spartans. The only point came in 2nd place in singles where senior Michael Wozniak took the win in straight sets. The men’s team ended the season with a miserable record of 2:20. You can’t sugarcoat it, it’s been a terrible year for the team. They were 0-9 in conference play. They couldn’t win a game away. IUPUI and Butler were the two squads that Purdue was able to defeat.
Head coach Geoff Young was just in his first season with the team, having been named head coach in June 2022. Interestingly, Young joined Purdue from Minnesota where he found great success with the Golden Gophers. Let’s hope it’s only a matter of time before he can work the same magic here at Purdue. With such a quick turnaround from hiring to the start of the season, it would have been incredibly difficult to make changes to a Purdue program that has been struggling lately. Here we hope that next year can be better.
The women’s season was definitely better than the men’s. Although, as mentioned, that’s a low bar. The women finished the regular season with the most wins since 2013, including seven straight wins early in the season. However, at the time of the Big Ten tournament, they faced Nebraska and lost 4-3. Kennedy Gibbs won her 4th-ranked singles point to level the match 3-3 after wins from Carmen Gallardo Guevera, Liz Norman claimed the other point for the Boilermakers in 1st-ranked singles.
Purdue finished the season 15-8 with a conference record of 6-5. There is a lot of talent on this Purdue team and they seem to be going in the right direction.
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