COLUMBUS, Ohio - After making history yesterday, the No. 41 ETSU men's tennis team fell in a hard-fought battle to the second-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes, 4-0 Sunday afternoon. Due to inclement weather the match was contested indoors at the Ohio State Varsity Tennis Center. The Bucs end their season with a 24-4 overall record while the Buckeyes advance to the Round of 16 in Tulsa with a 34-1 record.
The Buckeyes claimed the doubles point for the early 1-0 advantage. Senior Lisandro Picardo (Mar del Plata, Argentina) and Daniel Isaza fell to Matt Allare and Balazs Novak, 8-3 in the No. 3 position while Oscar Posada (Valencia, Venezuela) and Alex Ahlgren (Tyreso, Sweden) fell to the 10th-ranked duo of Steven Moneke and Bryan Koniecko, 8-2 in the No. 1 position.
In the second position Enrique Olivares (Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela) and Sebastian Serrano (Cartagena, Colombia) were leading their match 6-5 when the doubles point was claimed.
In singles the Buckeyes claimed the next three points in straight set victories. Senior Predrag Burmazovic (Belgrade, Serbia) fell to No. 19 Justin Kronauge in the No. 3 position, 6-1, 6-1, while Lisandro Picardo fell to Matt Allare, 6-1, 7-6.
The match was clinched when Daniel Isaza fell to Drew Eberly in the No. 6 slot, 6-2, 7-5.
In the three remaining matches the Bucs were battling it out. Olivares and Serrano both trailed by a set but were tied at 6-6 and 5-5 respectively looking to force the match into a third set. Oscar Posada also was done one set and was trailing 3-2 when the match was called.
"We showed up at the tournament and had a great hard fought match with Notre Dame yesterday and then today because of the weather we had to move indoors and we had a tough time making that transition. Ohio State plays probably 80 percent of their matches indoors but they are just an awesome team top to bottom. They did everything well and we didn't start coming through until it was a little too late. We fought hard and I am extremely proud of what the guys have accomplished in helping us rewrite the history books," said head coach Yaser Zaatini.
