Chicago, Ill. - The Illinois Tech men's tennis team got their season off in earnest on Sunday with a pair of matches against Lake Forest College and number one ranked and defending NCAA Division III men's champions University of Chicago. After falling to the powerhouse Maroons 7-0 in the opening match, the Scarlet Hawks battled back for a come-from-behind 4-3 victory over the Foresters in the nightcap. The Scarlet Hawks improved their record to 1-2. The Foresters fell to 1-2 on the season. The Maroons start their season 2-0 with their victories over the Scarlet Hawks and the Foresters.

Illinois Tech 4 - Lake Forest 3
The Scarlet Hawks found themselves in an early 1-0 deficit when the Foresters won the opening doubles competition 2-1 in a tightly-contested match. The Foresters and Scarlet Hawks split the doubles number one and three matches, with Lake Forest winning the number one match 6-3 and Illinois Tech's number three pairing of Eduardo Lopez and Pol Dueso Guell winning their match 6-4. The number two doubles match went to a tie-breaker, with the Foresters edging the Hawks 7-6 (7-3) to claim the lone double competition point.

In the singles competition, the Scarlet Hawks received an early match victory when freshman Alexander Feher won his first collegiate match with a victory over Lake Forest's Bernardo Aguiar 6-2, retired (due to an Aguiar injury) in the number one singles match. The Foresters' Felipe Morales defeated Pedro Caroa-Accino Roca 6-2, 6-2 in the number two singles match. The team's split the number four and five singles matches, with Avneet Singh falling in the number four match 3-6, 1-6, and Dueso Guell winning the number five singles match 6-3, 6-4. Freshman Hozumi Tada won a three-set match against Lake Forest's Joao Espindola 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 to win the number three singles match, and tying the match up 3-3. For Tada, it was also his first career collegiate singles match victory. That left the number six singles match to determine the overall match victory. After splitting the first two sets, Lopez won the third set tie-breaker to win his match 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 to secure the fourth team point for the match victory. 

University of Chicago 7 - Illinois Tech 0
The Scarlet Hawks had a much tougher go of it against the top-ranked Maroons. UChicago won all three matches in doubles play to secure the lone doubles team point and the early 1-0 match lead. The Scarlet Hawks did battle, however, with the number one pair of Feher and Singh winning two games in their 6-2 loss, Roca and Tada also earning two game victories in their 6-2 loss in the number two doubles match. Lopez and Dueso Guell earned three game wins in their 6-3 loss in the number three doubles match.

Singles play was a much tougher road for the Scarlet Hawks against the Maroons. Dueso Guell and Lopez had the best success in singles play, with Dueso Guell winning seven games in his 6-2, 7-5 loss in the number five singles match, and Lopez winning seven games in his 6-3, 6-4 loss in the number six singles match. In other matches, Roca earned three game wins in his 6-1, 6-2 loss in the number two singles match, while Singh recorded a game victory in each of his sets in his 6-1, 6-1 loss in the number four singles match.

Up Next
The Scarlet Hawks will hit the road this week, when they travel to Terre Haute, Indiana on Saturday for a 2:00pm CT match (3:00pm ET) against Rose-Hulman. The Hawks defeated the Fightin' Engineers twice last season, winning their season-opener 6-3 last January at the XS Tennis Center. They also knocked out Rose-Hulman in the opening round of the NCAA Divsion III Men's Tennis Championship 5-3 last May.