The Emory University men's tennis team dropped a heartbreaker Saturday morning, falling in the UAA third place match to WashU, 5-4, in Altamonte Springs, FL.
The Eagles opened the match on a positive note, claiming the first two doubles points before the Bears seized some momentum heading into singles. Senior Sahil Raina and sophomore Ryan Glanville led off the match with an 8-4 decision at the third position with senior Andrew Esses and sophomore Nolan Shah following with an 8-6 win on one. The third doubles match went to a tiebreak with the WashU pairing emerging victorious, besting senior Antonio Mora and junior Samuel Dean by an 8-7 (2) count.
Mora got the point back to open singles action, taking care of business on court one 6-2, 6-2 to put Emory back in front by two at 3-1.
WashU was then able to even the score with back-to-back wins on the fifth and sixth lines prior to Shah stopping the run with his decisive 6-1, 6-0 win at the third spot.
With the score knotted at 4-4, all attention turned to court two where Esses was locked into a three-set, winner-take-all match against the Bears' Daniel Li. Esses struck first, taking set one 7-5, but was unable to clinch the match as he fell 6-2, 6-1 in the proceeding sets.
With the loss, the No. 11 ranked Eagles now sit 8-10 on the season and now await word on their NCAA fate which will be known May 9th when the NCAA tournament field is released.