ARKADELPHIA, Ark. – The No. 9 West Florida men’s tennis team (1-3, 1-1 GSC) fell to No. 11 Drury (2-0) 5-2 at the indoor courts of the Heflin Tennis Center in Arkadelphia on Saturday night. The Argonauts dropped the three doubles matches to fall behind 3-0 and could not recover, falling 5-2.

In the first doubles spot, Andrey Pozhidaev (freshman/Sochi, Russia) and Nathan Rosenfeld (freshman/Miami, Fla.) fell 8-5 to Nahom Serekeberhan and Ivan Marevic. In the third doubles, Kevin Ducros (freshman/Aix-en-Provence, France) and Sean Gunnels (freshman/Mobile, Ala.) fell 8-5 to Panthers Alex Kacamakis and Antonio Garcia Santos.  In the second spot, Argonauts Patrick Bateman (sophomore/Apopka, Fla.) and Luis Arboleda (senior/Medellin, Colombia) pushed Anton Khadasevich and Juan Ponce to a tiebreak. However, they dropped 9-8, giving the Panthers the comfortable 3-0 lead.

Entering singles action, the Argonauts needed five wins out of six matches. However, The Panthers kept fighting to win their two more points to close the match. Playing in the fourth spot, Rosenfeld fell to Kacamakis in straight sets with a 6-3, 6-4 score. With the 4-0 disadvantage, the Argonauts started a comeback when Ducros defeated Serekeberhan 7-6, 6-1. The second Argonaut point came when Pozhidaev rallied from a set down to defeat Ponce 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 to set the scoreboard at 4-2 for the Panthers. The Panthers clinched the match when Arboleda pushed Khadasevich to a third set. However, the third Panther player defeated Arboleda 6-7, 6-3, 6-2 to give the Panthers the 5-2 win. The following two matches, No. 5 and No. 6 singles, were not finished due to a tight schedule.

The Argonauts will return to action on Sunday March 1 in a neutral site match in Arkadelphia when they face No. 6 Cameron (3-4) at 9:00 am CT. Both teams faced each other last year and the Argonauts came out victorious with a 5-4 win. For information on all UWF Athletics, visit www.GoArgos.com.