The Eastern men’s tennis team beat Tennessee Tech 5-2 in its home opener Saturday to improve to 5-5 overall and 2-1 in the Ohio Valley Conference.

The Panthers converted the doubles point with identical 8-5 wins at the No. 1 and No. 3 spots in the duo line up to earn an early 1-0 match lead.

Then, behind his sixth consecutive win, sophomore Robert Skolik with a straight set win at the No. 4 spot in singles match to give Eastern a 2-0 lead.

However, Tennessee Tech would pull to within 2-1 of in the team scores following wins by Oleksiy Arovin over Moritz Kandt (6-1, 6-2) and Alberto Esteban over Grant Thompson (6-1, 2-6, 6-3) at the top of the lineup.

But Eastern would counter with back-to-back wins by senior Kevin Bauman and sophomore Ryan Henderson in their respective No. 6 and No. 3 spots, respectively, to ultimately earn the win with a 4-1 advantage.

“I thought Robert (Skolik) and Kevin (Bauman) did a great job of setting the tone of the match with their win in both doubles and singles,” said Eastern associate tennis director and men’s coach Eric Stark in a press release.

Henderson beat Alvaro Cintas in two sets (6-4, 6-4)

The Panthers and the Golden Eagles would split the remaining final action at the No. 2 and No. 5 spots in singles play.

Sophomore Rui Silva nabbed the final Panther point off his three-set comeback win at No. 5 over Gagan Jain (6-7 [8-10], 6-3, 6-2).

“I am proud of the way Ryan (Henderson) and Rui (Silva) were able to take both the matches from two very good opponents. I thought our doubles play was once again very solid today. We just went out there and played hard.”

Anthony Catezone can be reached at 581-2812 or ajcatezone@eiu.edu.