The Oregon Ducks men’s tennis team was barely beaten by the Tulsa Golden Hurricanes, 4-3, on Monday night in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The Ducks most recently swept Montana State at home and came into the matchup having won three out of their last four.
No. 30 Tulsa has won seven of eight. A day prior, the Golden Hurricanes took down the No. 35 Oklahoma Sooners.
The new pair of Ivailo Keremedchiev and Yousseff Kadiri looked in sync throughout their 6-4 doubles victory over Daniel Siddall and Tom Thelwall-Jones.
Oregon secured the doubles point after the No. 21 pairing of Josh Charlton and Quinn Vandecasteele beat Kody Pearosn and Ezequiel Santalla 6-2.
Tulsa stormed back in the singles matchups, where the No. 4, 5 and 6 matches all went Tulsa’s way and finished in straight sets.
Jesper Klov-Nilson fell short against Connor Di Marco 6-1, 6-1, Ryoma Matsushita lost to Siddall 6-2, 6-1 and Luke Vandecasteele was outplayed by Callum Gale 6-2, 6-0.
After a 6-4 default singles win in just one set by Luke Vandecasteele against Tulsa’s Santalla, Tulsa led the overall match 3-2.
Keremdchiev took care of business against Adham Gaber after needing a tiebreaking set in the first duel, but Keremedchiev left no doubt in the second set as he won 7-6, 6-1.
The overall matchup score was tied 3-3 with just the No. 1 singles matchup to finish between Charlton and Pearson.
The emotions ran high between the squads as all of the student-athletes stood on their teammates’ side and shouting after every point.
Charlton and Pearson split the first two sets, both getting a 6-3 win. But in the final set, things weren’t going Charlton’s way after Pearson led off with three unanswered game wins.
Charlton made a valiant comeback effort but was thwarted after Pearson clinched the 4-3 team win for Tulsa. The final score of their match was 6-3, 3-6, 4-6.
Looking to bounce back, the Ducks head to Omaha, Nebraska to face the struggling Nebraska Cornhuskers on Wednesday at 11 a.m. PT.