ST. LOUIS – The University of Missouri-St. Louis men's tennis team dropped a hard-fought match to 20th ranked Northwest Missouri State 4-2 on Sunday afternoon at Genesis Indoor Courts in St. Joseph, Mo. The Tritons drop to 2-2 while the Bearcats win their first dual match of the season.

NWMSU won two of the three doubles contests to win the first point of the match. Andrea Zamurri and Fillippo Piranomonte defeated Raphael Kerndl and Juan Vigil in the number one doubles match 6-4. Jose Mayorga and Joshua Mackey knocked off Michael Delebois and Rafal Bednarczuk 6-4 in the second doubles contest but Mason Meiser and Martin Sanchez beat Gavin Sohn and Tanin Ramnath 6-3 in the final doubles match.

In singles play, Zamurri defeated Mayorga in straight sets 6-3, 6-3 at number one singles. Vigil gave UMSL its first point of the match rallying for a three-set win over Meier. Meier won the first set 6-2 but Vigil won the second set 6-4 and the third set tiebreak 10-5. Kerndl beat Delebois 7-6 (7-4) in the opening set but Delebois won the second set 6-4 to force a tiebreak. Delebois won the tiebreak 11-9 to win the match.

Mackey and Bednarczuk split the first two sets with Mackey winning the first 6-1 and Bednarczuk took the second 6-2. The two battled through a hard-fought tiebreak with Mackey coming out on top 13-11 to pull the Tritons within 3-2 in the match. The Bearcats clinched the match as Vinnie Rodrigues defeated Marcos Navas 7-5, 6-0 in the number six singles contest. The final singles match between Ramnath and Sanchez was unfinished with Ramnath leading the match 1-0 and ahead 4-3 in the second set when the match was called.

UMSL returns to the courts on Saturday (Feb. 24) when it travels to Illinois State to take on the Redbirds at 4:30 p.m.