Written by Austin Wells, Sports Writer

It was a disappointing Wednesday for the Men’s Tennis team as the No. 10 Blazers (12-5) fell short to No. 8 Columbus State (16-3), losing 5-1.

Things got off to a bad start for the Blazers, losing all three of what were close doubles matches. Edward Nguyen and Niklas Herbring were the closest to victory for the Blazers, falling to Marco Almorin and Adi Malicbegovic 8-7. Gereon Heitmann and Ramon Weil fell to Columbus State’s Martynas Zakaitis and Oussama Zoghlami 8-6 in the second match, and Francisco Yim Kim and Joachim Schemm lost to Benedikt Wilde and Maciej Kierkus in the third match 8-5.

The Blazers then went on to win only one of the three completed singles matches, which featured Heitmann defeating Wilde 6-2, 6-3. Among the two losing matches for VSU, Herbring was narrowly defeated by Malicbegovic 6-3, 2-6, 6-7 and Schemm lost in straight sets to Kierkus, 3-6, 4-6.

There were also three other singles matches on the afternoon that went unfinished. Before the matches ended, Weil trailed a close matchup against Columbus State’s Jorge Vargas 3-6, 6-3, 5-6. Yim Kim was also behind Zoghlami 3-6, 6-6 before the match stopped, and Nguyen trailed in his match against Almorin 7-6, 1-6, 1-4.

The Blazers will look to bounce back on the road this Friday against Armstrong Atlantic.