PHILADELPHIA – The Morgan State men's tennis team lost a hard-fought battle against Drexel by a score of 4-3 win on Sunday afternoon at the Armory on Drexel Homecoming Weekend.
 
The doubles point proved to be the difference as Drexel improved to 4-0 overall on the year and 14-1 all-time against Morgan State. The Bears dropped to 1-5 for the season.

Drexel got important doubles wins from its two top pairs. Xabier Saavedra and Balaji Lakshmanan teamed up to take down Sagar Sathyanarayanan and Treajh Ferguson at No. 1, 6-2, to improve to 4-0 this season in dual play. Kashyap Ashok and Sinan Orhon would play a tighter match but they too came out on top, beating Evan Ward and Lucas Krusinskiat No. 2, 6-4.
 
In singles play, Saavedra earned the widest margin of victory on the day, downing Ferguson, 6-1, 6-4. At Nos. 2 and 3, Andrew Sinai and Lakshmanan would each go to three sets. It was Lakshmanan, however, who would come out on top, defeating Ward after dropping the second set, 7-6 (2), 4-6, 6-3. Sinai couldn't hang onto the momentum after winning the first set, falling to Jeremy Field 3-6, 7-5, 6-3.
 
The back half of singles featured perhaps the tightest matches of the day, and the Dragons would need to win one to take the dual. Orhon battled his way back after getting blanked in the first set to win the second in a tiebreak, but Arjun Ramakrishnan took a close third set to win, 6-0, 6-7 (3), 11-9. Ashok also found himself on the down side of a marathon match. After taking the first set, he could not hang on, falling to Krusinski, 6-7 (5), 6-3, 10-8.
 
It would ultimately be Hamza Laalej who would seal the match win for the Dragons. He took care of business at No. 4, earning the straight set win over the Bears' Felix Andre, 7-5, 6-2.
  
The Bears return to the court on Friday, Feb. 12 when they face James Madison for a match at 6 p.m. in Baltimore.