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| By Chad Hensley, NKU Sports Information HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. – The Northern Kentucky University men’s tennis team saw their nine-match winning streak fall to the wayside as Xavier University defeated the Norse 9-0 Thursday afternoon at the Joyce Yeager Tennis Complex. NKU (11-5) started out slow as Ignacio Ortiz and Fritz Dlabik lost their first flight doubles match to Ra’ees Ismail and J.T. Torbeck 8-3 and was followed by an 8-4 second flight loss by the duo of Jason Kramer and Ricardo Weaver to Brian Starr and Bobby Deye. The Norse looked to steal a point from the Musketeers (13-6) in an entertaining and exciting third doubles flight as Will Knoll and Tyler Fraser matched XU’s Chris Herrlinger and Anthony Palmenter point for point. After forcing a tiebreak set to decide the winner, Knoll and Fraser looked to take a 3-1 advantage in the set but were called for a violation and a point awarded to Herrlinger and Palmenter to knot the score at 2-2. From there, it was all downhill for the Norse duo as they would eventually fall by a final count of 9-8 (7-3). In singles action, Knoll couldn’t seem to recover from the heartbreaking doubles loss as he was drilled 6-0, 6-0 by Deye in the fourth singles flight. Fraser and Weaver then lost their singles matches by the same 6-1, 6-1 score to Torbeck and Richard Canelas respectively. Fraser’s singles lose clinched the team victory for the Musketeers. In the top flight, Ortiz battled Herrlinger in a tight, thrilling match but lost 6-3, 6-4 just minutes before Dlabik lost to Ismail 6-0, 6-4. The most entertaining singles match of the day was in the sixth flight as NKU’s Kramer and XU’s Mike Dieciuc battled it out in a back-and-forth first set. Neither player could get a comfortable lead until Dieciuc won the first set 7-5. Kramer would take a 2-1 lead in the second set before dropping five of the next six sets allowing Dieciuc to win the match 7-5, 6-3. |