Blue still undefeated

The Michigan tennis team was living on the edge this past weekend.

The Wolverines took a perfect Big Ten record into the Hoosier state. They narrowly escaped with perfection intact.

Down 1-0 to Purdue after losing the doubles point, Michigan's singles players won four of their six matches to escape with a 4-3 victory.

"I think that today was huge for us," senior co-captain Will Farah said. "We've lost to them the last two years that I was here and we just knew that we would have to go out and fight. We really didn't want to lose to them."

The Wolverines moved Danny McCain from the fourth singles spot to the third for the match.

"Purdue has had their top four singles players play at different spots all year," Farah said. "We used a lineup based on what we thought they would do to match-up against them."

McCain lost a close 1-6, 7-6, 7-5 match to Chris James.

John Long, playing in McCain's fourth singles spot, won a straight-set match over John Marshall, 6-4, 7-6.

Other winners were junior Matt Wright over Derek Myers, 6-3, 7-5, Farah over Jamie Gordon, 7-6, 7-6, and freshman Ben Cox over Evan Hayes, 6-1, 6-0. Cox has an undefeated dual-meet record.

On Saturday, the Wolverines beat Indiana, 4-3, a crucial win in keeping Michigan's Big Ten title hopes alive.

The win over Indiana was imperative because the Hoosiers were just 2-2 in the Big Ten. With No. 2 Illinois still looming on the schedule, a loss to a mediocre Indiana team would have killed any title hopes that the Wolverines had.

But Michigan managed to stay on track and beat the Hoosiers.

The scrappy Wolverines will now have to travel to South Bend for an out-of-conference battle with rival Notre Dame.

"It's always tough to play on the road," Farah said. "You aren't familiar with the courts, the crowd is rooting against you, you have to travel, it is never easy."

The Wolverines are staring down the barrel of a loaded gun. The team has to do what it has done all season - put the last meet behind it and focus on the next match.

04-13-99