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DALLAS (SMU) - SMU men's tennis dropped a tight 4-3 match to Wichita State as a part of the SMU Indoor Invite on Saturday at the SMU Tennis Complex.
 
"Great match against Wichita. Credit to them, they are very well-coached," said head coach Grant Chen. "They are so gritty and tough, we knew it was going to be a dog fight. We dug ourselves a little bit of a hole with the doubles and a couple singles matches, but we clawed our way back. We still gave ourselves a chance to win. Credit to Wichita State, they did a lot of things right and they were just a little bit tougher in a few points here and there. That's always going to be the difference in these types of matches. We'll have a couple days off and we're looking forward to a doubleheader on Friday and another road Big 12 match against Oklahoma."
 
The Mustangs and Shockers began the day with a close doubles point that set the tone for the match. The Shockers took line two against Liam Krall and Julian Steinhausen, 6-4, before SMU evened it up with Tomas Vaise and Juan Jose Bianchi coming through, 6-3 on line one. Caleb Chakravarthi and Huntley Allen's loss on line two put Wichita up 1-0 heading into singles.
 
Wichita found themselves up 3-0 and within a point of clinch after wins on lines four and six. Vaise fell 7-5, 6-4 on four while Clarke Wilson came out on the wrong end of a 6-4, 6-2 score on six.
 
The Mustangs would fight their way back into a competitive match forcing three-set matches on the remaining courts. The Shockers would clinch the match when Krall fell 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 on court two.
 
After losing a second-set tiebreaker to win his match on No. 5, Steinhausen came alive with a dominant super tiebreaker win. Jan-Simon Vrbsky wouldn't let a first-set loss phase him as battled back to win the second and a third set super tiebreaker. Chakravarthi got past a first-set tiebreaker and then gutted out a second-set win to finish out the 4-3 final score.
 
The Mustangs return to the court on Friday, Jan. 29 as they face Southeastern Oklahoma and UT Tyler in a doubleheader.