"Maybe we just needed an hour to get warmed up, just an hour of warmups in doubles," Penn State men's tennis player Bradley Hunter said last Friday after the No. 63 Nittany Lions defeated Purdue.

Hunter was referring to the slow start with which the Lions struggled during their 5-2 victory against the Boilermakers. Specifically, first serves were a major concern in the doubles matches.

First serves, the most important aspect of doubles play according to Penn State coach Jan Bortner, were something on which the Lions worked last week in preparation for the match on Friday. Then, as first serve after first serve was smacked right into the net, it seemed as if the team would never get it down.

To make matters worse, on the second serve, the Boilermakers could bring the other player closer to the net, allowing a lot of quick, easy points.

The Lions dropped yet another doubles point to Purdue, something it has not won in years against the Boilermakers. And if not for a great effort from the No. 1 doubles pair of juniors Mark Barry and Malcolm Scatliffe, the Lions could have been swept to start off the match.

Starting singles down 1-0 in the Big Ten is not something a team wants to face, yet the Lions have been in that position in all three of their conference matches this season. This time, however, the team rose to the occasion in singles, an obvious strength, and was able to win five of the next six matches to gain its first Big Ten win of the season.

One of the keys to the good singles play was the Lions first serves landing in the service box.

"Singles is not as fast of a game, we just started seeing that we don't need to go for as much as we were," Hunter said. "We were just trying to go for way too much. Then we started hitting more sliders on the serve and the consistency and the percentage started to rise."

Taking five of six singles matches is great, but it is not something on which the Lions want to rely, especially when playing on the road. In an away match, getting out quickly with the doubles point is crucial.

"Most of the guys are singles players on our team, which is good because singles count a lot," Scatliffe said. "There are six singles [points] and one doubles point, but it's hard to win without the doubles point."

Although doubles is not up to par with individual play for the Lions at this point, there has been marked improvement, as the Lions were swept in doubles during their last Big Ten loss, to Indiana, earlier this season. However, each week must see more and more improvement, or the Lions could be in trouble.

"Baby steps, baby steps," Bortner said. "Sometimes I'm just not sure if we have the right combinations together -- we're well into the season and I don't like to be messing around with personnel.

"We're just struggling in some areas that, by this stage, we should be doing better at."

With a solid singles lineup, Penn State will mainly focus on doubles, as it has been all season long, for the Lions. With a road trip to Wisconsin and Northwestern coming up, making the needed adjustments is key. But if their singles play is any indicator of how good doubles could be, the Lions should be as optimistic as they were after the Purdue match.

"Our doubles is always a little behind our singles, but we did a really good job as a team fighting in singles," Barry said Friday. "If we just get the doubles down, we'll be pretty solid for the rest of the season."