Indiana men’s tennis went 4-16 during its 20-match weekend trip Oct. 6-8 in South Bend, Indiana at the Bobby Bayliss Invitational.
Senior Nishanth Basavarredy, accompanied by sophomores Deacon Thomas, Luc Boulier and Andrew Meier competed in the three-day round robin event. Each of the four players played four singles matches and two doubles matches at the Courtney Tennis Center at Notre Dame University.
In the first round, Basavarredy dropped a one-sided match to Illinois’ Tyler Bowers (1-6, 1-6) while Andrew Meier, who sat out the fall season last year, fell to West Virginia University’s Dimitri Moriarity (6-4, 6-1). However, Luc Boulier and Deacon Thomas each picked up victories in their first matches.
Boulier won a tiebreaker in his first set against Western Michigan University’s Ashton Adesoro before controlling the second (7-6, 6-3). Thomas, a transfer from Xavier University, went to a third set tiebreaker where he came out on top against Notre Dame’s Jean-Marc Malkowski (6-2, 6-7, 10-8).
The Hoosiers struggled over the two rounds, losing all eight matches. In the second round Basavarredy fell to Depaul University’s Sven Moser (1-6, 7-5, 0-1), Meier to West Virginia’s Alvin Altman (3-6, 6-1, 1-0), Boulier to Purdue’s Stefan Simeunovic (5-7, 3-6) and Thomas to Illinois’ Jeremy Zhang (2-6, 6-2, 0-1).
It was more of the same for the Hoosiers in the third. Two Hoosiers forced third set tiebreakers with Basavarredy losing to Vanderbilt University’s Callum Rendle (5-7, 6-4, 0-1) and Meier to Northwestern’s Owen Megargee (6-3, 3-6, 0-1), while Thomas lost to Purdue’s Marino Jakic (4-6 6-7) and Boulier to Notre Dame’s Malkowski (5-7, 4-6).
In the fourth and final singles round, Indiana struggled again with Basavarredy losing to Depaul University’s Elias Anwar (2-6, 1-6), Meier to Drake University’s Will Blevins (1-6, 6-4, 1-0) and Thomas to Notre Dame’s Kyran Magimay (5-7, 6-0, 0-1). The Hoosiers avoided a third empty round with Luc Boulier defeating the aforementioned Dmitri Moriarty from Western Michigan (7-5, 7-6).
In the doubles portion of the tournament, the team of Boulier and Thomas defeated Jackson Boone and Ferdinand Schlueter from Western Michigan (7-6), while Basavarredy and Meier dropped a competitive match to Vanderbilt’s Mitchell Deames and Callum Rendle (4-6).
The four Hoosiers switched partners for the final two matches with Meier and Thomas losing to Western Michigan’s Ashton Adesoro and Matej Kajzer (4-6) and Basavarredy and Boulier falling to Notre Dame’s Nil Giraldez and Yu Zhang (0-6). In total, IU went 4-16 across the twenty matches played.
Indiana will continue the fall season when it travels to Chattanooga, Tennessee, to take part in the ITA All-American Championships from Oct. 12-16.
