Results (.pdf) | Results | Brandon Currie Post-Match Interview

INDIANAPOLIS – Playing its second ranked opponent of the day, the IUPUI men’s tennis team had its opportunities to swing the momentum, but No. 53 Michigan State won big point after big point as it defeated the Jaguars 7-0 Sunday evening at the University of Indianapolis Tennis Center.

“We came out a little bit more flat in doubles this match than we did earlier against Kentucky which kind of hurt us. Then we had opportunities in singles play – we really had opportunities in every match, one through six,” Currie said. “We had some bad sets but at some point everybody was on serve and we lost a couple tiebreakers. To be honest, Michigan State just played the bigger points bigger than we did and that’s what ended up giving them success.”

The doubles point went to Michigan State as the Spartans used wins at the No. 2 and No. 3 doubles spot by identical 8-4 wins.

Even though those matches had completed, the No. 1 team of Thomas Gans and #Patrick O’Neill# were stride for stride with MSU as each side held serve for the first eight games. The Spartans used a break and held their serve to go up 6-4, but Gans and O’Neill each held their next service game making the score 7-6. IUPUI’s freshman tandem had a 40-15 lead and were one point away from sending the match into a tiebreaker, but Drew Lied and Gijs Linders rallied for four straight points to close out the 8-6 win.

Outside of Nick Volz, who lost his opening set 6-0, IUPUI’s two through six players each remained within striking distance but either lost their first set by not being able to overcome a break or by falling in a tiebreaker.

However, after dropping his opening set, 6-0, Volz rallied and kept his opponent, Ronnie Hulewicz, off-balance as he took a 4-1 lead midway through the second set. Unfortunately for Volz, Hulewicz regained his form from the opening set and captured the final five games to earn a 6-4 second-set win.

After losing tough opening sets, Ivan Mojsejev, Chase Emerson, and Joel Modesitt just couldn’t string together enough points in their second sets and fell at the No. 2, 3, and 4 spots, respectively.

Armaan Choudhary and Deon Shafer were within striking distance in the second sets of their matches as they looked to extend their matches to tiebreakers, but they failed to overcome breaks ultimately leading to losses.

IUPUI next hits the road for a pair of matches next weekend beginning with Marquette on Friday, Jan. 27. The Jags follow that with a match at in-state rival Ball State on Saturday, Jan. 28, in Muncie, Ind.

“The key for us next week is progression – you don’t want to take any steps back, you want to work on the things we struggled with today and try and improve on those as we move forward,” Currie said about his team as they head into next weekend.
"Both teams we have coming up, we haven’t beat either one of them. We’ve played them pretty tough but hopefully this year is the year to get it done.”