April 10, 2014
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The No. 16 Penn State men's tennis team concludes their Big Ten road schedule this weekend with matches at No. 36 Purdue and No. 69 Indiana. The Nittany Lions face the Boilermakers at 1 p.m. on Friday and the Hoosiers at Noon on Sunday.
The Nittany Lions take on the Boilermakers in a pivotal matchup in the Big Ten. Both teams enter this weekend with 6-1 records in the conference to sit in a tie for second place behind No. 1 Ohio State.
Penn State is 19-2 overall this spring and riding an eight-match win streak. They have nine wins this spring against ranked opponents and five road wins against ranked opponents, both program highs.
Sophomore Leonard Stakhovsky (Kiev, Ukraine) moved up to No. 33 in the ITA Singles Poll this week. Stakhovsky is 15-4 this spring with six wins against ranked opponents.
Senior Russell Bader (Austin, Texas) has a record of 17-4 this spring and 24-8 overall. Last weekend, Bader moved into fifth place on the all-time wins list at Penn State. He has 91 career wins, one behind Mark Barry (2002-06) for fourth place.
Sophomore Matt Barry (Lido Beach, N.Y.) has 14 wins this spring while mostly competing at No. 4 singles. Freshman Alex Fennell (Bala Cynwyd, Pa.) has 13 wins in the third singles position, while sophomore Roman Trkulja (Toronto, Canada) has 11 wins.
Bader and Stakhovsky are 13-4 at No. 1 doubles, good for a ranking of 30th in the ITA Poll. They have defeated two ranked opponents this season.
Junior Michael Reilly (Raleigh, N.C.) and senior Chris Young (Melbourne, Australia) are undefeated, 12-0, at No. 2 doubles. The duo is ranked 54th in the nation and also has two wins over ranked opponents.
Barry and Trkulja combined last weekend to go 2-0 at the third doubles spot. They are 6-0 overall this year.
Purdue comes into Friday's match with a 14-3 record overall. They knocked off the Hoosiers, 5-2, on Wednesday. The Boilermakers have won five straight matches in Big Ten play.
Mateus Silva leads Purdue with 13 wins this spring, while Mark Kovacs has 12 victories. Diego Acosta and Aaron Dujovne each have 10 wins.
Senior Szymon Tatarczyk has a 5-6 mark while competing mostly at No. 1 singles.
Tatarczyk and freshman Ricky Medinilla are ranked 66th in the ITA Doubles Poll. The duo is 7-0 this spring with one win against a ranked opponent.
Kovacs and Silva are 7-3 in dual matches, competing mostly at No. 3 doubles.
The Hoosiers are 13-14 overall and 2-6 in the Big Ten. They split last weekend's matches as they fell 6-1 at Nebraska on Friday, but bounced back with a 4-3 win against Iowa.
Sophomore Sam Monette is ranked 103rd in the ITA Singles Poll. He is 13-9 in dual matches.
Daniel Bednarcyk is 17-8 this spring while competing mostly at No. 4 singles. Sven Lalic has six wins at the No. 1 singles spot.
Bednarczyk and Monette are ranked 65th in the nation in doubles. They are 16-5 with one win against a ranked opponent.
Live stats for the Purdue match are available at http://www.purduesports.com/livestats/m-tennis/xlive.htm.
Live stats for the Indian match are available at http://athletics.indiana.edu/livestats/.
Please check back to GoPSUSports.com throughout the weekend. Updates are also available on our Facebook, Penn State Men's Tennis, and Twitter, @pennstateMTEN, pages.