April 22, 2010
Final Results 
EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. - Senior Javier Bernabe picked up his 11th singles victory of the season to lead to three wins throughout the middle of the singles lineup, but the Northern Illinois men's tennis team dropped the doubles point, and fell in a 4-3 dual-match decision at SIU-Edwardsville Thursday evening.
"This was a tough loss for us today," said NIU head coach Patrick Fisher. "SIU-Edwardsville came to compete, and we fell short in that area. We knew it would be a challenge; this team had some talented players, and played a couple of our common opponents, including Liberty, very tough."
"Our challenge now is to get over this loss as quickly as possible heading into what is a very important match for us, on Saturday against Ball State. We've got to get back to playing solid tennis during doubles play, because I thought we took a bit of a step backward in that area today. I expect our guys to be ready to play on Saturday."
NIU's (9-11, 0-3 MAC) No. 2 doubles tandem of Maksym Bartiuk and Maximilan Phillips defeated SIU-E's Robert Young and Carlos Sanchez, 9-8 (8-6); but the Huskies dropped identical 9-7, extra-frame pro-set decisions at both the top doubles flight, and No. 3 position, as the Cougars claimed a 1-0 lead heading into singles play.
The Huskies' wins in singles action came at the No. 3, No. 4 and No. 5 slots. Bernabe cruised to a 6-2, 6-3 win over Sanchez; while Roman Turtygin and Phillips both also captured straight-set wins.
Titov dropped a 6-3, 7-5 decision versus Young at No. 2, while Greg Czajkowski dropped a second-straight tiebreaker to fall in straight sets. Bartiuk lost by a 7-5, 6-3 count at No. 1 singles, his first setback since Feb. 7, a span of 11 matches.
Northern Illinois will host Ball State in the regular-season Mid-American Conference finale, Saturday beginning at 4 p.m. Bernabe and fellow senior John Kuang will be playing their last match at NIU.
