BOILING SPRINGS, N.C.- The Gardner-Webb men's tennis team took a tough loss this afternoon, 4-3, to Big South Conference opponent Campbell University at the Webb Tennis Complex.
With the defeat Gardner-Webb moves to 6-8 on the year and 1-2 in Conference play, while the Fighting Camels move to 8-6 overall and 3-1 against Conference members.
Campbell got off to a very quick start on the afternoon winning 8-3 at No. 2 doubles and 8-3 at No. 3 doubles to secure the early 1-0 match lead. The all freshman team of Yaroslav Prostakov and Adam Schmidt fell at No. 2 with senior Brendan Dempsey and junior Jonathan Walker dropping the match at the No. 3 spot.
Trying to gain momentum for Gardner-Webb as they moved towards singles play Nikita Zverkov and Ernest Alberch fought hard at No. 1 doubles winning in tiebreak over Visser/Rossignon 8-7(3).
The Runnin' Bulldogs would feed off that momentum with Dempsey coming out strong in his No. 5 singles match defeating Campbell's Lorenz Schwab in easy fashion 6-1, 6-0, while Zverkov would also win his No. 2 singles match handily beating Nicolas Rakitin 6-2, 6-0, to give the Runnin' Bulldogs a 2-1 match lead.
The Fighting Camels however would go on to win the next three singles matches to garner their overall team victory. The first win for Campbell came at the No. 1 singles position as Steven Billington def. GWU's Benjamin Kaszas 6-4, 6-2. Alberch would be the next to drop his match for Gardner-Webb. After winning his first set 6-4, the senior would drop his next two sets 6-2, 6-1, to Lukas Schaefer. The clinching match came at No. 6 singles as the freshman Prostakov fell 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, to Andrien Rossignon.
With one match still playing red-shirt senior Korhan Ates played a tough three set match against Jonathan O'Neal, which led to Ates ultimately winning the last match defeating O'Neal by a score of 7-5, 2-6, 6-4 at the No. 4 singles position.
The Runnin' Bulldogs men's tennis team will look to bounce back and get a much needed conference win as the travel to Rock Hill, S.C. this Sunday to face off against the Winthrop University Eagles.
