ARLINGTON, Texas  – The Nicholls State University tennis teams returned to the courts on Tuesday at UT Arlington and the men's squad, ranked No. 71 in the latest ITA Rankings, remained unscathed in Southland play with a 4-3 victory, while the women's team suffered a 6-1 defeat. 

“I'm really proud of our guys,” said head coach Meenakshi Sundaram. “They've put in hard work during the offseason and they are definitely seeing the results by beating two of the top teams in the conference. What you put in is what you get out of it, which is something I've been disappointed with in our girls. A few of them are doing their part, but some of them didn't put in any work in the fall and we're not getting positive results.”

The men (5-3, 2-0) claimed the doubles point against UTA (2-6, 0-1) by taking two of the three matches. After dropping the No. 1 match, 8-1, Shayann Vaezzadeh and Dmitry Kozionov won a hard-fought No. 2 match, 9-8, and Damjan Despotovski/ Roy Knight won the third flight 8-4.

In singles, Kozionov continued his stellar play, winning the No. 2 match 6-2, 6-2. In the No. 4 and 5 matches, Palash Tiwari and Roy Knight, respectively, bounced back to earn 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 victories to give Nicholls a 4-3 win.

The women's squad (2-3, 0-1) picked up its only point of the day in singles action as Marie Aubert captured the No. 4 flight in three sets 4-6, 6-4, 10-6.

In doubles, UTA (4-3, 2-0) won two of the three matches to take a 1-0 lead. In the No. 1 flight, Parija Maloo and Janna Leeuwerik took down the Mavericks, 8-2.

The women were originally scheduled to play Grambling on Wednesday at home, but the match has been canceled. Their next match will be on March 3 at home against Sam Houston State.

The men return to the courts on March 6 when they host USC Upstate at 1 p.m.