The Kentucky men’s tennis team lost a close 4-3 match to Alabama on March 13 at the Hilary J. Boone Tennis Complex in Lexington. This marks the fourth consecutive match for Kentucky decided by a 4-3 score, with the Wildcats winning only one of those contests.
The outcome was determined by tiebreakers in both doubles and singles play. Alabama secured the doubles point after winning a tiebreaker on the final court, and later clinched the overall victory with another tiebreaker in the third set of singles on court six. In each of their last three losses, Kentucky has dropped a deciding set tiebreaker on the final court.
In doubles action, Jack Loutit and Eli Stephenson fell to Alabama’s Vit Kalina and Andrii Zimnokh on court one. Charlelie Cosnet and Martin Breysach evened things up for Kentucky with a win over Jacob Olar and Matic Kriznik, but Alabama ultimately took the opening point after Rohan Hazratwala and Brenden Loh defeated Matt Rankin and Mikael Arseneault in a tiebreaker.
During singles play, Yoshka Sborowky gave Alabama its first singles win by defeating Jack Loutit. Jaden Weekes responded for Kentucky with his first ranked victory of the year against Matic Kriznik. Eli Stephenson lost to Vit Kalina, while Charlelie Cosnet extended his own four-match win streak by beating Carlos Gimenez Perez. Nicolas Arseneault snapped a four-match conference slump with a comeback win over Andrii Zimnokh, tying up the overall score before Alabama’s Rohan Hazratwala clinched the match against Mikael Arseneault in another tight finish.
Kentucky will next host No. 18 Auburn for its seventh conference match of the season on Sunday at 1 p.m., with free admission available to fans at Hilary J. Boone Tennis Complex.
