Bronco Men's Tennis Narrowly Defeated By Purdue

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – The Bronco men's tennis team put up a tough fight against Purdue on Saturday, ultimately coming up on the short end of a 4-3 final. Santa Clara is now 11-6 overall and 8-2 in home matches.

Taking a break for finals this week, Santa Clara will host Tulane on Tues., March 26. The Broncos and Green Wave will begin at 11 am on the Mission Campus in a spring break matchup.

Purdue, which triumphed in a competitive 4-3 final over Fresno State earlier in the week, came out strong and clinched the doubles point for the early advantage. As both teams have seen, the doubles point is often the difference-maker in close matches, and this was again the case on Saturday.

Over its past six matches, Santa Clara is 3-0 when winning the doubles point and is 0-3 when losing the doubles point.  Earning the doubles point proved to be the difference-maker in 4-3 wins over UC Irvine and Furman; however in this match Purdue emerged victorious. The Boilermakers are undefeated (13-0) when taking doubles and are winless (0-3) when losing doubles.

In the singles portion, Purdue won three matches which clinched the match, before Santa Clara rallied for three hard-fought victories to narrow the final margin.

In the top spot, No. 68 John Lamble rallied after dropping the first set, dominating the final sets 6-2 and 6-2. Lamble's win gave him nine consecutive victories, which marks the longest Bronco winning streak this season, and he improved his overall record to 16-9.

Ashot Khacharyan turned in the strongest SCU performance of the day, continuing to outperform his opponents with a straight set, 6-4, 7-6 win. Khacharyan upped his record to 13-2 and he has won 11 of his last 12 matches.

Tom Pham overcame a rough first set and picked up his team-leading 18^th win with a 2-6, 6-4, 1-0 (9) final. Pham has won five straight matches and is 18-6 overall.