BOX SCORE 1   BOX SCORE 2   SEASON STATS

WACO, Texas (SMU) - SMU men's tennis dropped a road doubleheader to No. 15 Baylor on Monday at the Hawkins Tennis Complex.
 
"Tremendous fight from the team," said head coach Grant Chen. "We are absolutely trending in the right direction. We played with a lot of energy and much sharper than Friday's match. We are getting in as many matches as we can seeing as we didn't compete in the fall. I'm proud of this team. We're looking forward to getting home for a few matches in Dallas."
 
Baylor handled the Mustangs in match one winning every set, beginning with doubles wins by scores of 6-3, 6-2 and 6-2. In singles, newcomers, John Zisette and Callaway Clark had the strongest showings batting through competitive matches. Both freshmen lost tight first-set tiebreakers before dropping set two.
 
In match two, the Bears and Mustangs went to the wire for the doubles point. Julian Steinhausen and Liam Krall fell behind 3-5 on court three before rallying back to win the next four games against Baylor's line two. Caleb Chakravarthi and Huntley Allen lost 6-3 on court three. Court one between Tomas Vaise / Juan Jose Bianchi and the 10^th ranked doubles team of Sven Lah / Constantin Franzen would decide the point. The two pairings battled to 6-6, before Baylor won the tiebreaker 7-4.
 
In singles, Baylor and SMU featured six different competitors than the first match. Each of Baylor's six singles players were nationally-ranked. Baylor took a clear advantage after the first sets, winning each 6-4 or better. SMU pushed its way into a competitive match with tight second sets. Steinhausen lost on court four to No. 74 Stachowiak while Jan-Simon Vrbsky lost 6-3, 6-4 on the second line to No.56 Soto.
 
Transfer Clarke Wilson, playing in his first singles match as a Mustang, came back from a 6-1 loss in set one against No. 66 Frantzen and played to a close 6-4 defeat in set two. Vaise broke No. 103 Charlie Broom to stay alive in the match and forced a second set tiebreaker that Broom would win 7-5.
 
Krall lost 6-2 in the first to No. 43 Lah before rebounding with a decisive 6-1 second set. He forced Lah into a tiebreaker to decide the match after an evenly played third. Lah would win 7-1. Chakravarthi met up with No. 46 Adrian Boitan on court one and dropped a lengthy set one, 6-4. The pair broke back-and-forth early in the second before ending up in a tiebreaker where Boitan prevailed, 7-3.
 
The Bears improved to 3-0 while the Mustangs dropped to 2-3 with all three losses coming against top-20 teams on the road.
 
Next up, the Mustangs host Wichita State and Utah in the SMU Indoor Invite / ITA Kickoff Weekend. The Mustangs face Utah on Friday (4 pm) and Wichita on Saturday (noon).