Netters end weekend in controversy

By Brian Steere

Daily Sports Writer

If Saturday's loss against Indiana was painful for the No. 20 Michigan men's tennis team, Sunday's defeat at the hands of Purdue was an absolute heartbreaker.

After falling to the Hoosiers 5-2 on Saturday, the Wolverines lost a controversial 4-3 decision to the Boilermakers on Sunday afternoon for their second straight defeat at the Varsity Tennis Center.

In a sport where a few inches mean the difference between winning and losing, the Wolverines were the victims of some questionable line calls yesterday afternoon in their loss to Purdue.

The most notable display of confrontation came at No. 4 singles, where Michigan sophomore Ben Cox came up just a few points short in a three-set loss to the Boilermakers' Carl McCafferty.

After splitting the first two sets and battling evenly throughout the third, the two players needed to play a tiebreaker in order to decide the outcome of the match. On the second point of the tiebreaker, Cox hit a strong forehand winner deep into the corner, but McCafferty felt the shot was out and subsequently called it long.

Despite having been overruled on numerous occasions throughout the match, the chair umpire refused to change McCafferty's call this time, much to the dismay of Cox and the Michigan fans in the crowd.

McCafferty then took control of the tiebreaker, jumping out to a 6-1 lead. But Cox refused to submit and battled back to within two points at 4-6. However, with McCafferty serving, the chair umpire overruled Cox's service call, which allowed McCafferty to escape with a controversial victory.

Enraged by the umpire's overrule that ended the match, Cox vehemently challenged his decision but didn't get anywhere.

Following the painful defeat, Cox was only able to think about what might have been.

"It's an extremely frustrating loss because I felt like I was right back in the tiebreaker before the umpire overruled me," Cox said. "Who knows, if I had ended up winning today's match that might have turned around my whole season."

The loss was especially painful because it curtailed a valiant comeback by the Wolverines.

After dropping the doubles point for the second consecutive day, Michigan lost two singles matches at the No. 1 and No. 5 spots to leave it a point away from defeat.

But the rest of the Michigan players on the court stepped up and refused to go down without a fight.

Sophomore Henry Beam bounced back from a horrendous first set where he was broken three times and earned a tough 1-6, 7-6, 6-3 victory at the No. 2 position.

After he split the first two sets with Purdue's Andrew Wakefield at the No. 3 spot, sophomore Danny McCain rediscovered his fire and took the final set in a tiebreaker.

Finally, at the No. 6 position, freshman Zach Held stepped into the singles lineup and performed like a veteran by dominating the third set to claim a 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 victory.

Although the Wolverines ended up 0-2 for the weekend, head coach Mark Mees was not overly disappointed with his team's performance.

"Any time you play in a conference like the Big Ten, every match is going to be a dog fight," Mees said. "We just need to start stepping up on the big points and playing tougher tennis."

One point of concern for the Wolverines is a back injury suffered by No. 1 singles player Matt Wright. After hurting it last weekend in the Northwestern match, Wright continued to play through the pain against Michigan State and Indiana.

But, after limping at the end of his singles win against the Hoosiers, he was sidelined for the Purdue match and is still questionable for this Thursday's showdown with No. 30 Notre Dame.

After spending the entire month of March on the road, the Michigan men's tennis team is halfway through a six game home stretch. The Wolverines host three

different teams at the Varsity Tennis Center this week.

Thurs., April 13 Notre Dame 3:00 p.m.

Sat., April 15 Iowa 1:00 p.m.

Sun., April 16 Wisconsin 1:00 p.m.

Home Sweet Home

DAVID KATZ/Daily

Despite Zach Held's three-set victory at No. 6 singles, the Michigan tennis team fell to Purdue yesterday at the Varsity Tennis Center, 4-3.