CONWAY – The Coastal Carolina men's tennis team suffered its first home loss of the season Sunday afternoon as the Chants fell 4-3 in a close match to Louisiana. The match began with singles, which resulted in a 3-3 tie and forced the doubles point to be the deciding factor. Coastal won the second doubles court and Louisiana the third, but it was the Ragin' Cajuns that broke the tie by winning the first court in extras, 7-5.
Coastal falls to 12-7 overall and evens its Sun Belt record at 2-2. Louisiana improves its overall record to 20-7 and its conference record to an identical 2-2 mark.
Luiz Faria (No. 1) and
Daiki Tanabe (No. 6) claimed two of Coastal's singles point in straight sets.
Pyry Hyrkkonen provided the third singles point for Coastal, taking the fourth court in three sets.
Louisiana won singles points on courts two, three and five to even the singles round at 3-3 and send the match to doubles.
Louisiana's third doubles pairing of Jamie Fraser and Elio Lago won the first half of the doubles point, 6-2.
Lawrence Perrin and Faria then won the No. 2 doubles match, 6-4, to even the point and force the No. 1 result to decide the match.
In a close battle at No. 1, it was Pearse Dolan and Arthur Libaud that prevailed 7-5 over
Joel Popov and
Zak Talic.
Coastal plays its final two away matches of the regular season next weekend when the Chants travel to Georgia State (April 6) and Georgia Southern (April 7).
Louisiana 4, Coastal Carolina 3
Singles competition
1. Faria, Luiz (CCU) def. Jan Galka (LA) 6-4, 6-3
2. Pearse Dolan (LA) def. Talic, Zak (CCU) 6-1, 2-6, 6-2
3. Elio Lago (LA) def. Popov, Joel (CCU) 7-5, 6-4
4. Hyrkkonen, Pyry (CCU) def. Arthur Libaud (LA) 6-2, 2-6, 6-2
5. Jamie Fraser (LA) def. Achondo, Gonzalo (CCU) 6-3, 3-6, 6-4
6. Tanabe, Daiki (CCU) def. Kacper Dworak (LA) 7-6, 6-2
Doubles competition
1. Pearse Dolan/Arthur Libaud (LA) def. Popov, Joel/Talic, Zak (CCU) 7-5
2. Perrin, Lawrence/Faria, Luiz (CCU) def. Jan Galka/Kacper Dworak (LA) 6-4
3. Jamie Fraser/Elio Lago (LA) def. Tanabe, Daiki/Hyrkkonen, Pyry (CCU) 6-2
