The Washington men's tennis team fell to No. 9 Oklahoma State 4-1 in its second match of the ITA Indoor Championships.
The day started out rough for the Dawgs with a very lackluster doubles performance. Mitch Stewart and Piers Foley dominated on their way to a quick 6-1 victory. Unfortunately, the other two pairings did not have the same luck, losing 6-2, and 6-1, respectively.
Head coach Matt Anger was not pleased with how flat the team came out to open the match.
“Really disappointed with how we came out tonight,” head coach Matt Anger said. “It was shocking. We have improved, we are better than that. We have put too much time and effort into our work and what we are doing to come out and play like that. We owe each other more. We owe the Husky tennis family more.”
Washington had that slow start bleed into singles as freshman Jack Davis lost his first singles match after not playing the previous two matches. The Huskies rebounded with a 7-6, 6-2 victory by junior Foley.
The momentum was short-lived as senior captain Jake Douglas blew a golden opportunity to send his match to a third set and fell 6-4,7-5 to give Oklahoma State a 3-1 lead.
With their backs against the wall, the Huskies were given another obstacle as some questionable calls went against Stewart in his match against Tristan Meraut. After Stewart won a quick first set, 6-2, he came out a little slow in the second and fell behind 4-2. While he was down 4-2 Meraut hit a ball that appeared to be quite long from the stands. The official called it in and both Stewart and Anger were appalled.
This led to both of them having to step back and refocus out there before things spiraled out of control.
“I felt like I was talking to myself,” Anger said. “I was trying to keep him calm and keep myself calm. We helped each other.”
Stewart dropped that game but fought back before ultimately losing that set 6-4. His match was called shortly after that as the overall match was wrapped up when junior Enzo Sommer fell 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.
Sophomore Amit Batta also had to deal with a few calls that he thought he should have got. He dropped serve at 4-4 in the first set after a call that would have resulted in a game-winning ace for Batta. He lost the next game and lost the set 6-4. He got over it quickly and rebounded to a 6-3 second set victory, he had a 2-0 advantage in the third set when his match was called.
The Huskies will look to get in the win column to wrap up their weekend ITA Indoor Championships with a match against Baylor at 6:30 p.m. at the Nordstrom Tennis Center.
Reach reporter Kyle Gehler at sports@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @KyleGehler
