No. 37 Middle Tennessee men’s tennis (15-5) dropped its doubleheader midweek contest to No. 41 Yale (11-5), 4-3, at the Outdoor Tennis Courts. 

The match against the Bulldogs was the Blue Raiders third ranked opponent in the last five matches. 

“Obviously, you want to be playing these teams, if you look at the results, we’re right there if not as good as them,” assistant coach Josh McDermott said. 

The match started with Yale clinching the doubles point, as Jonasz Dziopak and Eric Crivei fell 6-4 to Yale’s Jason Shuler and Dylan Tsoi, followed quickly by Eric Li and Jim Ji securing a 6-3 win over Houston Jacques and Antoine Mayoral. 

“We didn’t play to the caliber that all three of our teams can play at, looking back at the match today, that’s the first thing we want to take care of, is cleaning up our doubles,” McDermott said. 

In singles competition, Birtan Duran fell to Jason Shuler 6-3, 6-3 as Yale secured the first singles point. 

The Blue Raiders picked up momentum, as Crivei completed a 6-4, 6-1 singles win over Ethan Chung to draw the Blue Raiders closer. 

Freddy Murray fell short 6-4, 6-3 against Li, snapping Murray’s five-match singles streak. 

The decisive point saw Ondrej Horak fall 7-6, 6-2 to Gogineni, clinching the victory for Yale with two courts remaining. 

Karim Al-Amin secured his 10th consecutive singles win, going to the wire with Edward Liao, splitting the first two sets 7-6, 6-2, before taking the 10-point tiebreaker 11-9. 

The final set saw Dziopak defeat Ji, claiming another singles point for the Blue Raiders 7-5, 7-6, with the second set being moved indoors due to inclement weather.

The Blue Raiders hit the road to take on the University of South Florida (3-11) in Tampa on Saturday, with first serve scheduled for 1:30 p.m. CDT.  

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