JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn.—The Carson-Newman men's tennis team suffered its first setback of the season with a 7-2 loss to Tennessee Wesleyan in what was the Eagles' first action of the season Thursday afternoon at the Buddy Catlett Tennis Complex.
"The team we played today on the men's side is a good team," coach Jean Love said following the loss. "You can't allow them to get too happy and get on a roll. We did some good things today but we have to start stringing those good things together. We are going to learn from that and move on."
Tennessee Wesleyan (4-1) jumped right out of the gate to sweep all three doubles matches to begin the contest.
Carson-Newman's (0-1) No. 1 paring of J.P Oliveira (Brazil) and Stefano Daza (Venezuela) fell 8-0 to the best Bulldog pairing to start things off. Juan Sabastian Perez (Ecuador) and Kevin Mendes (Woodstock, Ga.) then fell 8-4 and C-N's third pairing of Marc Bantel (Germany) and Jordan Knott (Louisville, Ky.) capped of the sweep with another 8-4 defeat.
Singles play did not prove to be much of a different story early on as the Eagles dropped its first two singles matches on the day.
For the second-straight year, Oliveira owned the No.1 spot for the Eagles but fell in his season debut 6-0,6-3 to his counterpart. Perez then scored early but could not pull off the victory by losing 6-2, 6-1.
One of the only two wins on the day for the Eagles belong to the junior in Daza. C-N's No.3 player took down his opponent in a pair of 6-2 games for the home squad.
"Stefano [Daza], in his singles victory, he played good within himself," Love said. "He utlilized his stregths well and didn't do too much too soon. That was good for him because sometimes he has a tendancy to do too much too soon and then he starts to make some errors. He didn't do that today and played really smart."
The Bulldogs would then cap off two more in a row by taking down Bantel and Mendes in the fourth and fifth-seeded contest. Bantel came up short in three games 6-0, 3-6 and 10-3, while Mendes day ended with two 6-2 defeats.
Jesus Barcete (Spain) captured Carson-Newman's second win of the day in the final singles match of the match. The freshman took down Tennessee Wesleyan's No. 6 player 7-5, 6-4 in two games to give the Eagles their second point of the match.
"Since coming back from Christmas break, Jesus [Barcete] has been so solid and he just continued that today, Love said. "He played a really good match. Once again, he played really smart and solid by not going for so much so soon. He hit some good shots when he needed to."
Carson-Newman will take the court again on Sunday to make up a rain-cancelled match on Feb. 10th. The Eagles will travel down to Newberry, S.C. to take on the Wolves at 2 p.m. on Sunday.
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