ORLANDO, Fla. – The Wichita State men's tennis team narrowly lost to No. 43 Tulane, 4-3, bringing an end to its season Friday at the USTA National Campus.
 
"I'm proud of the battle that we had today," head coach Darragh Glavin said. "The guys gave all they had in a tough match, and it came down to the wire."
 
After claiming just 10 doubles points coming into the match, the seven seed Shockers (11-16) came out strong, going up on all three courts. Kristof Minarik and Alex Richards earned a 6-2 win at No. 1 to finish the season with a 10-6 record. It became a race to the finish at courts two and three with the Shockers needing just one game on each court to clinch. Richey King and Alejandro Jacome won that race at No. 3 with a King ace that downed the Green Wave, 6-4, leaving Misha Kvantaliani and Orel Ovil's match unfinished up 5-4 at No. 2.
 
With the advantage going into singles, Wichita State claimed three first set wins, but only one resulted in a match victory. Kvantaliani won his sixth No. 2 singles match of the season in straight sets, 6-3, 6-3, following Ovil's loss at court three, regaining the lead for the Shockers, 2-1.
 
The two seed Green Wave (14-11) responded with a court six win, where Rafael de Alba defeated Luke Bracks, 6-3, 6-3, to tie the match back up at 2-all.
 
Richards fell in his second set at court five after taking the first and battled back and forth with his opponent in a closely-contested third set, ultimately falling 6-2, 1-6, 4-6 to give Tulane the 3-2 lead.
 
After dropping his first set, 6-3, at No. 4, Jacome took his second set to a tiebreaker, where he duked it out with Luc Hoejimans, ultimately coming away with a 7-6 (5) win to send the match to a third set. Jacome didn't give up a game in the third set, winning 6-0 to claim his 16^th singles win of the season and bring the match all square at 3-3.
 
With the match coming down to No. 1 singles, Minarik had to fight in the third set as Tulane's Luka Petrovic had built momentum from his set two victory. The hot weather had become an issue for Minarik, but a rain delay gave the players a rest period with Petrovic up 6-5, 30-15.
 
Needing just two points coming out of the rain delay, Petrovic closed out the match, clinching for the Green Wave and sending the team to the semifinal.
 
"Kristof has had a tough year and was able to hang in there, and unfortunately the conditions got the better of him," Glavin said. "But I'm proud of how we fought adversity all year and were able to finish strong with a good mentality that we need to use going forward for the start of next year."