HOUSTON – The Wichita State men's tennis team ended competition in the 65th Annual Ralph 'Connor Rice Invitational with a very close loss to the UAB Blazers on Saturday afternoon.
 
With the loss, the Shockers (3-16) have lost eight in a row and UAB (9-8) wins their second straight match.
 
Doubles was incredibly close with two courts being decided in a tiebreak. UAB would grab the early edge in doubles with a 6-3 win at court three over Luke Bracks and Alejandro Jacome. The Shocker pair of Misha Kvantaliani and Richey King responded, putting together 7-6 (1) win at court one to bring all eyes to court two.
 
Down 4-2 at court two, the Shocker duo of Marcelo Sepulveda and Vanja Hodzic would battle back to take a 5-4 match lead, but the Blazers won the next game to make it 5-5. The Shockers grabbed game 11 to make it 6-5 and had match point in game 12, but a return from Sepulveda on deuce point landed inches from being in, forcing the match into a tiebreak. In the tiebreak, UAB took a big 5-2 lead early, but the Shockers battled back to tie the break at 5-5 and again at 6-6, before ultimately being defeated 8-6, giving the Blazers the doubles point.
 
In singles, Jacome would strike first, cracking open the singles scoring with a 6-3, 6-1 win at court two and leveling the match score at 1-1.
 
The Blazers would respond with wins at four over Hodzic and at six over King to move one point away from victory.
 
The Shockers weren't going anywhere, as Sepulveda would pick up a 7-5, 6-2 win at court three and Kvantaliani picked up his second win of the day with a tight, 6-4, 7-5 win at court one to even the match at 3-3.
 
This left Bracks at court five to decide the match. Bracks lost his first set 6-2, before turning the tables and winning set two 6-2 to force a decisive third set. The first six games of the set were split evenly 3-3 before his Blazer opponent snatched back-to-back games to go up 5-3 in the set. The deficit was too much to overcome for Bracks, as he would fall in the third set 6-3, ending the match 4-3 in favor of UAB.
 
The Shockers remain in the Lone Star State for a bout on Thursday with the UT-Arlington Mavericks on March 28.