BEAUMONT, Texas – The New Orleans Privateers men's tennis team went down to the wire again, but this time fell on the short side of a 4-3 decision against the Lamar Cardinals on Saturday at the Thompson Family Tennis Center.
The Privateers got off to a fast start by securing the doubles point.
Mats Westkamp and
Misha Fomenkov won by a service break at flight one. Then
Nicolas Kramer and
Odysseas Papaioannou also won by a 6-4 score to earn the first point of the day. The match moved to singles where it was back and forth the whole way.
Lamar won the first match to finish with Axel Vila Antuna taking a 6-2, 6-1 decision. Then Westkamp responded for the Privateers at flight two for a straight set victory in dominating fashion (6-4, 6-2).
The Cardinals tied the score again with a straight set victory at flight three. New Orleans moved to the brink of a win after Papaioannou won 6-4, 6-4 to move the score to 3-2.
However, Lamar won the last two matches. Arthur Serfaim prevailed in a first set tiebreak then took the second set 6-3 to tie the overall score in the match. It came down to flight five once again as it did in the first meeting between the two sides.
This time it was Joshua Taylor who secured the win for the Cardinals. He won the first set in a tiebreak 7-3. Then Kramer bounced back to control the second set 6-2. Taylor then got a service break for a 6-4 victory to move the Cardinals' overall record to 6-13. The match time was three hours and 15 minutes.
New Orleans will go back out of conference when they face the New Mexico State Aggies on Monday at 2 p.m. The Privateers will remain at home to face SMU next Friday.
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