Issue date: 4/3/07 Section: Sports

By Pritish Behuria
The Daily Northwestern

The season's first weekend on the road in the Big Ten is never easy.

But it got off to a great start for Northwestern (7-10, 2-3 Big Ten) when it beat Purdue, 5-2, Friday. Unfortunately for the Wildcats, they could not continue their form the next day as No. 8 Illinois (11-4, 4-0) dominated in a 6-1 victory.

"We did a great job in the singles (Friday), and it was great to get that first road win," coach Paul Torricelli said. "But the Big Ten's always tough, and we ran into a better team (Saturday) and couldn't get the win."

The match against Purdue (8-7, 1-3) saw the Cats get off to a slow start, losing the doubles point.

On the bright side for NU, the doubles duo of sophomore Marc Dwyer and freshman Alex Sanborn broke its five-match losing streak to post the team's only doubles win of the weekend, beating Eric Hodgman and Kurt Zaske, 8-4.

"Marc and I played really well," Sanborn said. "Against Illinois, it was pretty close as well, and our doubles team lost some important points but we're all playing well."

The Cats continued the trend of breaking losing streaks when senior Christian Tempke broke a four-match losing streak, and beat the Boilermakers' Paul Rose for the first time in his career to even the dual at 1-1.

He had lost to Rose in both of their previous meetings.

"It was an important match for me, and I had never beaten Paul before so it was good for my confidence," Tempke said.  

NU won five of its six singles matches and clinched the victory when senior Matt Christian beat Zaske in No. 4 singles.

"Since he ended his losing streak earlier, Matt's been playing well," Tempke said. "Matt's a really consistent player and if his game's on, he's hard to beat.

"He plays a very unconventional style of tennis and comes to the net a lot, and most players are not used to that."

On Saturday against the Illini, the Cats lost all three doubles matches.

Continued...

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