Simon Felix won his match against Concordia (N.Y.) in three sets.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The Embry-Riddle men's tennis team suffered a tough 5-4 loss to NCAA II foe Concordia (N.Y.), Monday evening at the Crotty Tennis Complex. The win was the first of the year for the Clippers who are 1-0, while the Eagles move to 6-2 overall.
An injury that sidelined top-ranked singles player and 2012 ITA/NAIA National Champion
Patrick Besch, forced ERAU Head Coach to adjust his lineup for the second straight match, moving players up in the lineup in both singles and doubles.
It took just 30 minutes for the Eagles' No. 3 doubles team of
Simon Felix and
Kevin Chaouat to register the Eagles' first point of the afternoon as they downed Juuso Ojanen and Andreas Lindell 8-4. On court one, Tomasz Olfans and Benas Majaurkas pulled the Clippers level with an 8-5 win over
Deni Zmak and
Anthony Grasso.
At No. 2 singles, the ERAU duo of
Chris Freeman and
J.R. Leonik went up 7-6 and were serving for the match, but the Clippers' fifth-ranked pair of Andrey Boldarev and Daniele Piludu broke serve and held to force a tiebreaker. The tiebreak set belonged to Piludu and Boldarev who topped Leonik and Freeman 7-2 to put the Clippers up 2-1 for the match.
At No. 1 singles, Zmak pulled the Eagles level by easily dispatching 44th-ranked Olfans 6-0, 6-1. The Clippers won the matches on courts two and three as Boldarev topped Freeman 6-3, 6-1 at No. 2 and third-ranked Piludu topped Grasso 6-2, 6-1 at the third spot to give Concordia at 4-2 lead.
At the sixth spot,
David Spennare earned a two-set (6-3, 7-5) win over Ojanen and at No. 4, Felix downed Tisserand in three sets, 6-2, 0-6, 6-0 to tie the match at 4-4.
The deciding match was on court five where ERAU's
Miguel Lopez Gomez lost the first set to Majaurkas 6-2, but battled back to win the second by the same score. The ERAU freshman was unable to take the momentum of his second-set win into the third set and Majaurkas clinched the match with a 6-1 win.
The Eagles will be back in action at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday when they face Belmont at the Crotty Tennis Complex.
