EVANSTON, Ill. – After a back and forth battle, the Clemson Tigers fell to Northwestern, 6-1 in Evanston but freshman Wissam Abderrahman secured a victory in singles marking his fourth singles win in a Clemson uniform.
“Another tough battle on the road against a good team,” Head Coach Brandon Wagner said. “Doubles came down to a point here and there and credit to Northwestern to playing well at the end. Our guys fought their tails off in dubs. Not good enough to get the job done today on our end but we are learning and growing as a team and figuring out what needs to happen to be successful against the top teams. We will get there and this group is ready to get back to work and build on these experiences.”
The Tigers began their battle in doubles as the No. 33 ranked duo of Noa Vukadin and Max Smith went up against the Wildcat duo of Felix Nordby and Gleb Blekher. The Tigers fought hard as they forced a tiebreaker as the match continued to go back and fourth but Northwestern eventually took the win 7-6 (7-1).
With victories on court one and two, the Wildcats secured the doubles point and took a 1-0 lead over Clemson headed into singles.
In singles, Clemson put up a fight as Abderrahman and Marko Mesarovic secured wins in their first sets against the Wildcats. Abderrahman continued to impress as he defeated Saiprakash Goli, 6-2, 6-7 (4-7), 1-0 (10-6) to help the Tigers secure their first point of the match. The victory marked the freshman’s fourth singles win of the 2024 season. Northwestern went on to record singles wins on the rest of the courts to lead them to a 6-1 victory.
Up next, the Tigers will head home to play host to Georgia Southern on Friday, February 16th with the match slated for 5 p.m.
For complete coverage of the Clemson men’s tennis team, follow @ClemsonMTennis on Twitter and Instagram.
