HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. – The Northern Kentucky University men's tennis team played a hard-fought match, but fell in its Atlantic Sun Conference opener to a nationally ranked North Florida team by the score of 7-0 on Friday afternoon.
 
The No. 69-ranked Ospreys (13-4, 2-0 A-Sun) picked up the doubles point with wins in the first two flights. Caio Gomes and Yannick Zuern took an 8-3 victory over Mate Virag and Christopher Angulo in the top flight, while Lasse Muscheites and Zach Goldberg bested Adrian Isache and Jack Carney, 8-2. Jody Maginley and Nick Lang held a 5-4 lead on Alberto De Meo and Julian Bradley before their match was abandoned with the doubles point won.
 
Isache went on to take his opening set from Bradley at No. 4 singles, 6-4. However, Bradley came back to take a 6-4 win in Set 2 and finish off the match at 10-2 in the third-set super tiebreaker. At No. 3, Maginley forced Zuern to a tiebreaker before dropping the first set. Zuern kept the pressure on to take a 6-3 set and match win.
 
Gomes defeated Virag, 6-3, 6-4, in the top-flight match, while Angulo suffered a 6-2, 6-2 defeat at the hands of Norbert Nemcsek at No. 2.
 
The loss snapped a three-match win streak for the Norse, who fell to 4-6 overall and 0-1 in A-Sun play. NKU will look to return to its winning ways next week as the team travels to the Sunshine State for three matches. The week's action begins on Wednesday at Bethune-Cookman before the Norse get back into conference play on Thursday at Stetson. The weekend concludes on Sunday at Florida Gulf Coast.