Eastern men’s tennis fell to 0-4 on Tuesday afternoon to Indianapolis at UIndy Tennis Center in Indianapolis.

The Panthers dropped the match 6-3 to the Greyhounds from Indianapolis who are now 1-0 after their first match of the season.

Junior Tony Kostadinov and freshman Christoph Dreschler took an 8-5 victory over junior Robert Skolik and freshmen Preston Touliatos in the No. 1 doubles match.

The duo of freshman Andrea Morlet and sophomore Marco Razo barely got by juniors Ryan Henderson and Rui Silva, 9-8.

Juniors Fausto Cordova and Luke Hubert also took No. 3  doubles match over freshmen twins Trent and Grant Reiman 9-8 in another close match.

The Greyhounds also took three out of six singles matches after sweeping the doubles matches.

“We’ll go back to the drawing board and change some things up and look for improvements in the upcoming matches,” Eastern coach Eric Stark said. “But I will say I’m incredibly proud of the way this team fought in singles.”

Drechsler, Kostadinov, and Morlet all recorded wins for Indianapolis. Drechsler topped sophomore Grant Thompson 6-2, 7-5 in the No. 1 match.

In the No. 2 match, Skolik lost to Kostadinov after playing three sets. Kostandinov won the first set 6-4, but lost the second set 4-5. The third match was a tiebreaker with Kostandinov winning 10-7.

Touliatos defeated Hubert in a tiebreaker 6-7, 6-3, 10-5 for the No. 3 match.

In the No. 4 match, Razo took the loss to junior Ryan Henderson 2-6, 2-6.

In the No. 5 singles match, Silva defeated Cordova 4-6, 4-6.

The No. 6 singles match evened the singles win-loss total when Morlet beat Grant Reiman after losing his first set 3-6. Morlet’s won the second set 6-1 and the third was 7-5.

“I thought Preston, Ryan and Rui really did an outstanding job today in singles,” Stark said. “They really set the tone in singles and brought us back into the match and just came up a little short.”

Three points is the Panthers have scored in the short season so far. Head Coach Eric Stark said that he’s looking for improvements going forward by the time their conference season starts.

That may be one of many stepping stones going forward.

“Today, there was a lot of good things we did in singles,” Stark said.  “We have to find a way to come out and play some better doubles.”

Eastern will move on to play Valparaiso and Michigan State on Saturday in the tennis  doubleheader for the first time this season.

The Panthers travel first to Valparaiso for a 1:30 pm match before traveling back down to Indianapolis to a neutral site to play Michigan State at 7 pm.

Cody Delmendo can be reached at 581-2812 or cddelmendo@eiu.edu.