ORLANDO, Fla. – The Union College men's tennis team closed out its Spring Break schedule on Wednesday afternoon with a 5-2 loss to Division II Eckerd College at the USTA National Campus.
 
Eckerd (8-4) started the day by taking two of the three doubles matches to earn the opening point. After falling at the second flight, junior Solen Bellemare and first-year Simon Philip kept Union (6-5) alive with 6-3 win at the third flight. The Garnet Chargers came up one break short in a 6-4 first-doubles loss, then saw the Tritons take the top four singles flights in straight sets to clinch the win.
 
Union closed the match well, however, earning victories at fifth and sixth singles to end the day. Philip took the first set from Valdemar Spillemose in a 7-2 tiebreaker and then went on to take the second set, 6-2, to finish off the fifth-singles win and earn his second win of the day.
 
At the sixth flight, sophomore Vivaan Gupta came back from dropping the first set 6-4 to take the second by a 6-3 margin and set up a third-set supertiebreaker. Despite dropping the first four points, Gupta battled back and fought off two match points at 8-9 and 10-11 before taking four of the last five points for a marathon 14-12 win.
 
Union will return north to finish off non-conference play next Thursday, April 2, with a 4 p.m. matchup at SUNY Oneonta.