Lipscomb men’s tennis hosted its first home match of the season at Richland Country Club against the University of Alabama at Birmingham and ended Saturday night with a 4-3 loss.
Unlike the previous matches, the Bisons (1-2) lost the doubles point and started off the night behind, 1-0.
Lipscomb’s Francesco Tacconi and David Skrabut, playing in line three, finished first and lost 6-0 against UAB’s Jasper Van Kleef and Giovani Pasini.
In line one, Victor Chaw and Pablo Caffarena lost their set 6-2, which secured the doubles point for the Blazers.
The Bisons’ duo of Jorge Ortegon and Pedro Uribe were left with an unfinished match in line two.
“Honestly, our doubles performance was probably one of the worst ones we’ve had in the last two years,” Bisons head coach Geoff Hernandez said. “We’ve really made [doubles] a strength.
“I know that the guys will really put the effort to bounce back and take ownership over their strengths. We made a slip-up there, and it might’ve cost us the match. We can’t accept that, but we can make it better.”
Despite losing the doubles point, the Bisons were still found a way to defeat the Blazers in singles play.
In the No. 2 spot, Pablo Caffarena won both of his sets of 6-3 and 6-2 against Daniel Janko. With the win, Caffarena gave the Bisons their first point and knotted the score at one.
Shortly after, Jorge Ortegon won his sets 6-2 and 6-4 against Nikolai Manchev, giving Lipscomb a 2-1 lead.
However, Pedro Uribe lost both of his sets to Michal Lusovsky, which brought the Blazers up one point to tie the two teams at 2-2.
Playing in line one was Lipscomb’s Victor Chaw and UAB’s Roman Postolka. The two top players were battled to try to get the third point for their team and the match stretched three sets.
Chaw got the better of the duel to put Lipscomb ahead, 3-2.
“I like playing at Richland, and the rival I played suits my game style pretty well,” Chaw said. “I played well throughout the majority of the match, but I struggled to finish the match early. I just bounced back in the third set and had a more calm mentality and managed to win that match.”
In the sixth line, David Skrabut lost the match to UAB’s Giovani Pasini. Once again, the Bisons and the Blazers were tied at three.
The clock was running down, and it was up to Francesco Tacconi in line five to clinch the winning point for the Bisons.
Tacconi’s match against Jasper Van Kleef was a close battle that rolled out into the third set. Tacconi lost the first set but managed to bounce back with a victory in set No. 2.
The third set, however, did not go in the Bisons’ favor, and the UAB left the courts with a 4-3 victory.
“The top three guys [played] well and did a great job,” Hernandez said. “We just have to make sure that at the bottom, they want to be the guys that want to win it for us.
“There are going to be adjustments made early this year, and once we make those adjustments, then we should become the winners that we should be.”
Lipscomb will play at home against Furman on Friday, Feb. 1 at 6:30 p.m.
File photo by Russell Vannozzi