The Eastern men’s and women’s tennis teams lost tough matches to Indiana University-Purdue University-Fort Wayne, 4-3 and 6-1 respectively this weekend; however, the women were able to beat Northern Illinois on Friday.

The Panthers beat the Huskies by a score of 5-2. Freshmen Janelle Prisner and Jennifer Kim, sophomore Merritt Whitley and junior Annie Egan all won their individual matches.

The women then traveled to IPFW where they lost 6-1.

Whitley was the only woman to win her individual match. She won the first set by a score of 7-5 before losing the second set 6-2. She would put the finishing touches on the match, winning her third set 6-1.

“There were a lot of missed opportunities in both doubles and singles to make us lose the match,” head coach John Blackburn said.

The men’s match was much closer, but they came up short losing 4-3.

Sophomore Warren Race, junior Matyas Hilgert and freshman Kevin Bauman scored the points for the Panthers as they won their individual matches.

The doubles teams for the men did not fair well as they lost all three of their matches.

“We need to work on our mental approach more when it comes to matches,” Race said. “We need more conditioning for practice to get prepared for our upcoming matches.”

Blackburn said the Panthers were unable to cash in on a lot of chances to win some matches.

“We had a lot of close opportunities that we did not cash in on,” Blackburn said.

The men’s next tennis match will be Feb. 12 as they travel to West Lafayette, Ind. to take on Purdue, while the women get to take time off until Feb. 18 as they will travel to Carbondale for a match against Southern Illinois.

“The men need to just keep on playing complete matches and making the right choices in those matches,” Blackburn said. “The women need to just keep working on doubles.”

Grant Truccano can be reached at 581-7944

or gatruccano@eiu.edu.