WICHITA - The Wichita State men's tennis team suffered its first home loss of the season in a 4-3 loss to Southern Illinois Saturday afternoon at the Sheldon Coleman Tennis Complex.

The doubles point proved to be the deciding factor. After jumping out to sizable leads in all three matches, the Shockers saw their leads disappear quickly as the Salukis rallied to win two of the three doubles matches, and took a 1-0 lead into singles play.

It was a dead heat in singles play. SIU's Sebastian Rubiano increased the SIU advantage to 2-0 with a 6-4, 6-1 win over Matt Teivans in the No. 5 match. WSU's Vlad Marinescu put the Shockers on the board with a three-set, 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 win over Felipe Villasenor in the No. 1 match. Scott McCormick used a third set to tie the match at 2-2 with a 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 win over Anton Leonenko in the No. 6 match. The Salukis regained the advantage when Hugo Vidal defeated David Cavalcanti in three sets, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, to win the No. 4 match. Adrian Chermaci tied the match at 3-3 when he earned a retirement win (4-6, 7-5, 2-0, ret.) over Lukas Waked in the No. 2 match, but Jonathan Obrist dropped a heartbreaking three-set match, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, to Eric West to secure the win for SIU.

The Shockers return to action Sunday when they host Indiana State. The 11 a.m. match will be played indoors at the Genesis Health Club Rock Road location due to expected rain in the Wichita area.

-Wichita State-