Men’s and Women’s Tennis End Season With First Round Conference Tournament Exits

The Purdue men’s and women’s tennis teams season ended with a pair of first round Big Ten Tournament exits. It was not the way either team had hoped to see their season end, but neither were the outcomes unexpected. First, let’s take a look at the men.

The men lost 1-4 to the Michigan State Spartans. The lone point came at the #2 singles position where senior Michael Wozniak picked up the victory in straight sets. The men’s team finished the season with an abysmal 2-20 record. There’s no sugar coating it, this was an awful year for the team. They were 0-9 in conference play. They failed to win a match away from home. IUPUI and Butler were the two squads that Purdue was able to take down.

Head Coach Geoff Young was in just his first season with the team after being named head coach in June 2022. Interestingly enough Young came to Purdue from Minnesota where he had great success with the Golden Gophers. Let’s hope it’s just a matter of time before he can work his same magic here at Purdue. With such a quick turnaround from hiring to starting the season it would have been incredibly tough to make any changes to a Purdue program that has really struggled of late. Here’s hoping that next year can be better.

From the women’s side of things, the season certainly was better than the men’s. Though as noted, that’s a low bar. The women ended the regular season with the most victories since 2013 including a seven straight wins to start the season. Come Big Ten Tournament time though they ran into Nebraska and fell 3-4. Kennedy Gibbs won her point at the #4 singles spot to tie the match at 3-3 after victories from Carmen Gallardo Guevera, Liz Norman took the other point for the Boilermakers at the #1 singles position.

Purdue finished the season 15-8 with a 6-5 conference record. There’s a lot of talent on this Purdue team and they seem to be headed in the right direction.