UNM Falls In Tight Battle with MTSU 4-2
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — New Mexico and No. 45 Middle Tennessee State waged a pretty even battle, but two three-set wins in which the Lobos took the opening set proved costly as MTSU escaped with a 4-2 win to move to 8-6. New Mexico dropped to 4-4 and plays No. 55 Utah tomorrow at 9 am Mountain Time.
The Lobos took the doubles point in an odd way as No. 51 Aram Noroozian and Georgio Samaha lost to No. 76 Karim Al-Amin and Ondrej Horak 6-3. That meant UNM would have to get the other two doubles matches, and it did, both in tiebreakers. Daniil Kakhniuk and Nicolas Recoura won 7-6 (7-3) for the first half, and Aditya Balsekar and Avery Tallakson won by the identical score to give UNM a 1-0 lead.
It looked really good when UNM took three opening sets, but the tide turned when MTSU went up 2-1 on a strength of straight set wins at Nos. 2 and 3. Tallakson evened it up with a straight set win over his own, taking a 6-4, 7-6 (8-6) win. With three matches in a third set, the match was up for grabs. Aram Noroozian, who would eventually get a no decision, came back from losing his first set to Kacper Szymkowiak to was at 6-7 (6-8), 6-4, 4-3 when MTSU clinched the match. Shu Matsuoka beat Kakhniuk 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 and Al-Amin won 6-7 (3-7), 6-3, 6-4 over Balsekar to end it.
Noroozian lost the chance to tag Szymkowiak with his first loss of the spring as he entered 11-0. For head coach Rob Bareford, he knows he troops were right there.
“We had them, but we just couldn’t pull out the third sets that we needed,” he said. “Aram was serving 4-3, 30-0, so he likely would have won that for a 4-3 result. We have to be more disciplined throughout the entire match.”
He added, “At the end of the day we were right there so we have to learn from it and focus on Utah tomorrow.”
NOTES: The Lobos odd skid at No. 2 singles continued as UNM is now 0-8 in that slot over three players … UNM’s win at No. 2 doubles was the teams’ first win there … Samaha and Noroozian had their nine-match winning streak ended … Tallakson’s win was his fourth at No. 6, tying with Noroozian for the most wins by a player in and flight in the spring.