In a dramatic back and forth match, the LSU men’s tennis team were unable to finish off a comeback against No. 25 Vanderbilt, falling 4-3 in its Southeastern Conference opener.

“You can’t fault [the Tigers’] effort today,” said LSU coach Jeff Brown. “We didn’t play our best in some spots, but that will happen sometimes on the road. The match really came down to a couple points here and there.”

After a gutsy 9-7 win by the duo of senior Olivier Borsos and freshman Boris Arias secured the doubles point for LSU, singles play quickly swung the match in Vanderbilt’s favor. Freshman Tam Trinh was overpowered by Gonzalez Austin 2-6, 2-6, and senior Roger Anderson fell to Jeff Offerdahl 2-6, 4-6 to put the Commodores up 2-1.

Borsos evened the score at 2-2 when he defeated Marc van der Merwe 6-3, 6-4 for his second singles win of the season.

“[Borsos] is getting better and better,” Brown said. “He is going to be a big piece of the puzzle for us going forward.”

Senior Mark Bowtell was unable to give the Tigers the lead, as Kris Yee defeated him 6-4, 6-2. Down 3-2, the Tigers needed victories out of the remaining two courts to win the match.

In what turned out to be the deciding point, sophomore Chris Simpson battled No. 25 Ryan Lipman in a dramatic match. Lipman took the first set 6-4 and was leading early in the second when Simpson surged back to win 6-3. In the third set, Lipman stamped out the comeback attempt with a 6-4 win and clinched the match for Vanderbilt.

Due to a lack of court space, freshman Harrison Kennedy was not able to start his match until after Trinh had lost. Kennedy was locked in a tight match with Rhys Johnson when the Commodores clinched the match. Unfazed, Kennedy soldiered on and beat Johnson 7-6, 7-5 to close out the scoring.

The Tigers (5-3, 0-1 Southeastern Conference) will wrap up the first weekend of SEC play on Sunday afternoon when they take on No. 6 Kentucky (13-2, 1-0 SEC) at Hillary J. Boone Tennis Complex.