The UCSB men’s tennis team had an up and down weekend on the courts with an exciting win over Loyola Marymount Saturday and a disappointing loss against Arizona Sunday.

Junior No. 79 Tobias Galskov played in the number two singles position on Saturday. The teams were tied with three wins each and his match against LMU’s Felix Van Kann would be the decider for which team would end the day victorious. After losing the first set 4-6, Galskov continued to battle his opponent with long rallies and difficult serving games in a close and competitive match, winning the next two sets 6-3 and 6-4. Galskov’s victory gave his team the overall win 4-3 over the Lions.

The Gauchos depended on Galskov to be the hero after putting themselves in a hole after losing all three doubles matches. The top match was between top pair junior Ziad Sultan and senior Sasha Gryaznov and LMU’s Sebastian Bustamante and Todd Volmari, with Bustamante/Volmari coming out of the match with the victory, 6-3. The Lions won the other two doubles matches with wins from Cristobal Rivera and Van Kann over Galskov and junior Miles Seemann 6-2 as well as from David Doehring and Daniel Simko over sophomore Andrew Riminton and freshman Teague Hamilton 6-5.

The doubles losses gave the Lions a 1-0 lead going into singles play. In the top-seeded match, Sultan defeated Doehring in straight sets, 6-4, 6-4, while freshman Erik Johnsson beat Simko 6-3, 6-2 and Hamilton won his match over Bustamante 6-4,6-5. Countered by LMU’s victories from Rivera over Gryaznov 6-3, 6-2 and Volmari’s win in a very close contest over Riminton 6-2, 6-5 (7), the match came down to Galskov versus Van Kann with Galskov coming out victorious.

The win brought the Gauchos’ record to 2-2 with a match against Pac-12 team Arizona on Sunday afternoon.

The match against Arizona did not go as well for the Gauchos. After losing all doubles matches for the second day in a row, UCSB went on to lose the match 4-3.

“We were pitiful in the doubles,” Head Coach Marty Davis said. “That’s ultimately what killed us as we lost the point there again today.”

The match was played at the courts close to Rob gym instead of behind the Rec Cen and Head Coach Marty Davis believed this had an impact on his players.

“We’ve never practiced much or played a match over here before,” Davis said. “We didn’t have as much of a home advantage over here today as we might have.”

Hamilton, Johnsson and Galskov were the bright spots for the Gauchos as they were the three victors in the singles department. Hamilton beat his opponent handily with a score of 6-3, 6-2, Johnsson won his match 6-4, 0-6, 6-5 and Galskov won his match on a third set tiebreak after the overall competition had already been decided. He won 3-6, 6-3 (10-6).

The Gauchos very nearly won another match as Gryaznov narrowly lost to his opponent Sumeet Shinde 6-5, 6-5. The match ended as Gryaznov hit the ball into the net and Shinde fell the floor with an apparent ankle injury and would not have been able to continue had Gryaznov kept the ball in play.

“I started off pretty slow and then picked it up as the match went on. I felt I was playing pretty well at the end of the match but just couldn’t finish,” Gryaznov said. “It’s easy to get really negative there — like if I had just made it he would have still twisted his ankle — but in the end you just have to accept it.”

Gauchos take on Hawaii Pacific on Feb. 15 and then play their first conference match against University of Hawaii on Feb. 16.

This article is an online exclusive and did not appear in the print edition of the Daily Nexus.