The No. 2 seeded Emory University men's tennis program fell in the opening round of the ITA National Indoor Championships Friday afternoon, dropping a 5-4 decision to Washington University in St. Louis. The match was played at Mayfield Village Racquet Club in Mayfield, OH.

With the opening round defeat, the Eagles fall into the consolation bracket and will oppose the No. 3 seed Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Saturday morning at 9:00 AM.

The match, which lasted over four hours, came down to the wire as it was decided at the sixth position in singles featuring Emory's Pushkar Shinde and WashU's John Fakuri. The singles match was a three-set thriller that clocked in at two hours and 44 minutes. The first two sets went into a tiebreak with Shinde winning the first set before Fakuri won the second. In the decisive third set, Fakuri edged out Shinde by a score of 6-2.

The Eagles opened the match on a strong note, taking two of the three doubles points. At second doubles, senior Antonio Mora and sophomore Ryan Glanville picked up an 8-4 victory. However, the Bears drew even at the third doubles spot with the sophomore tandem of Nolan Shah and Sujay Sharma falling 8-4.

Seniors Andrew Esses and Sahil Raina sent Emory into singles with the lead as the pairing won at the first doubles position, 8-6, over WashU's Abhi Ramireddy and Daniel Li.

Shah extended the Eagles lead to 3-1 with his straight set 7-5, 6-2 triumph on court three. Unfortunately, the Bears tallied three straight wins to pull ahead 4-3 including a grueling three-setter on court one with Ramireddy topping Mora 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.

Esses brought Emory even with a three set win of his own at second singles, defeating Li 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 before the Bears earned the clincher over on court six.

Saturday's match with CMS features a rematch of both the 2020 ITA National Indoors and the 2019 NCAA Division III Championship matches where Emory secured the 5-3 win in both meetings.