Northwestern men’s tennis beats Purdue for first Big Ten win

An almost-three-week break from match play seemingly had no effect on Northwestern men’s tennis Friday night, as the Wildcats (13-6, 1-1 Big Ten) crushed the Purdue Boilermakers (12-9, 1-2 Big Ten) at the Combe Tennis Center in Evanston.

Northwestern has now won three of its last four matches after a midseason five-match losing streak.

Winning the early doubles point was a major part of the Wildcats’ season-opening (and record-setting) 10-0 start, and that’s exactly what Arvid Swan’s team was able to do against the Boilermakers.

Konrad Zieba and Ben Vandixhorn, a pairing Swan hasn’t used much this season, won at No. 2 doubles and were followed soon after by Chris Ephron and Michael Lorenzini winning at No. 3. That gave Northwestern the doubles point and a 1-0 overall start.

The Wildcats went ahead 3-0 with easy, straight-sets singles wins from Dominik Stary and Strong Kirchheimer and were well on their way to a victory. All six Northwestern singles players won their opening sets.

Jason Seidman, at No. 5 singles, sealed the team’s 4-0 win as the Wildcats cruised past a pretty good Purdue team to notch their first conference win of the season.

It’s of note that usual starter Sam Shropshire wasn’t in the lineup Friday in either singles or doubles. The reason for that was unclear.

Northwestern continues Big Ten play on Sunday in Bloomington against the Indiana Hoosiers.