Wilmington, N.C.  – The Gardner-Webb men's tennis team opened up the 2015 season this afternoon, playing against the #50 nationally ranked UNC Wilmington squad, falling 7-0 to the Seahawks on the road.

UNC Wilmington (2-0) swept the matches in today's contest, winning all six singles matches and all three doubles matches.

Head coach Mike Griffith had this to say about his team's performance on Monday afternoon. "It was the first match of the year and we played like it. The team played really hard today though and I liked seeing that this early on, but you have to give credit to UNC Wilmington they are a good team and showed that today."

No. 1 singles player Benjamin Kaszas dropped a well-played match to the Seahawks' Christiaan Van der Burgh 6-2, 7-6 (10-8), while fellow Runnin' Bulldog and the No. 2 singles player Nikita Zverkov lost his match 6-3, 6-3 to Santtu Leskinen.

At the No. 3 singles position, freshman Yaroslav Prostakov dropped his first official collegiate match 6-4, 6-1 to UNC Wilmington's Zach Hublitz. Senior Ernest Alberch playing at the No. 4 singles slot lost his match by a 6-1, 6-0 margin to Xander Veys from UNCW.

Rounding out singles play at the No. 5 spot was red-shirt senior Korhan Ates who lost his match 6-3, 6-2 at the hand of Javier Restrepo, with senior Brendan Dempsey also losing his No. 6 singles match to UNCW's Andres Torres.

In doubles play, GWU's team of Zverkov/Prostakov played to a 6-3 loss against the Seahawks' team of Leskinen/Van der Burgh.

The doubles match between Kaszas/Ates and Hublitz/Restrepo remained unfinished at a score of 5-2 in favor of UNCW because the team of Cramer/Veys from UNCW clinched the doubles point defeating GWU's Alberch/Hogan 6-4.

The Runnin' Bulldogs will return to action on Thursday, January 22. The team will travel to Spartanburg, S.C. to play matches against USC Upstate scheduled to commence at 2:00 p.m on Thursday.