In the first home match of the regular season, the men’s tennis team fell in a disappointing contest to East Tennessee State.

Yale (1–2, 0–0 Ivy) began the season by defeating Davidson (0–5, 0–0 SoCon) 5–2 and falling to No. 38 Virginia Tech (3–1, 0–0 ACC) 7–0 on the road in Virginia. The Bulldogs, currently ranked as the 58th team in the nation, faced off against East Tennessee (2–5, 0–0 Atlantic Sun), the no. 68 team, but were unable to capitalize on their home turf advantage, falling 5–2.

The morning began with doubles action, where the Elis took the first set before dropping the next two. The first doubles team featured Tyler Lu ’17 and Martin Svenning ’16, who defeated the Buccaneers team of Diego Nunez and Ismael Merino 6–4.

Unfortunately, the Bulldogs were unable to keep up the momentum. A 6–3 loss by Patrick Chase ’14 and captain Kyle Dawson ’14 to Sebastian Yllera and David Biosca tied the doubles match at one set apiece. East Tennessee prevailed with a 6–5 win by Ricardo Pabon and Conner Huertas over Yale’s team of Jason Brown ’16 and Alex Hagermoser ’17 to capture the doubles point.

“Obviously the doubles didn’t turn out the way we wanted it to, but we knew that all three matches were close and competitive so we tried to focus in more and prep ourselves for a quick start in singles,” Lu said.

After the loss of the doubles point, the Elis turned to the singles matches. Yale was able to win only two singles matches on the day, with Lu, the number one seed, recording the Bulldogs’ only straight set win over East Tennessee’s Biosca, 6–3 and 6–4.

Dawson, who played in the number four spot, was the only other player to record a point for the Bulldogs by defeating his opponent, Huertas, in three sets, 6–4, 2–6 and 6–1. Svenning, the second seed, fell to Yllera in a tightly contested three set contest, 5–6, 6–4 and 6–1. The sixth seed, Zach Krumholz ’15, also sent his match into three sets against the Buccaneers’ Pabon, eventually falling 6–5, 4–6 and 6–3.

Both Daniel Faierman ’15 and Hagermoser dropped their matches in straight sets, falling to Merino and Roger Ordeig, respectively, in contests between the number three and five seeds.

The Elis played this weekend without Cyprus native, and typical number five seed, Photos Photiades ’17, who was competing for his country at the Davis Cup.

The team, preparing for a doubleheader this coming Saturday at home, will look to reverse its results from this weekend.

“We’re really focused on maintaining the level of play we’ve seen throughout practice in a real match scenario,” Faierman said. “Everyone’s been stepping up in practice and now it’s time to play to our full potential in a real match.”

Faierman also added that the team will look to improve on the things that it felt were poorly done against East Tennessee in preparation for its next match.

Yale faces off against Georgetown and Fairfield next Saturday at 12:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. respectively.