SMU junior Artem Baradach serving during a doubles match at Turpin Tennis Center. (MICHAEL DANSER/The Daily Campus)

The SMU men’s tennis team fought hard but was unable to land a knockout punch against the University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish, SMU fell 5-2 on Sunday, April 4 at the Turpin Tennis Center.

The Mustangs were in good shape after No. 1 doubles, which is composed of juniors Darren Walsh and Adham el-Effendi, ranked as the No. 29 doubles team in the nation, defeated their opponents, 8-5. However, SMU’s No. 2 doubles was swept by Notre Dame, 8-0, leaving everything up to No. 3 doubles.

The duo of Chris Hooshyar and Artem Baradach ended up serving for the matchpoint but were not able to finish and end up falling 9-8 (8-6) and the point went to Notre Dame.

Down a point, the Mustangs needed to catch up in singles and Baradach did his best to provide that spark by defeating No. 29 Casey Watt 4-6, 7-5, 1-0 (10-7).  The victory over Watt was Baradach’s third over a ranked opponent this season.

Unfortunately, the only other Mustang to claim a victory was the hot-handed Walsh, who won his seventh straight match by defeating Notre Dame’s David Anderson in three sets 2-6, 6-1, 6-3.

“It was a good match,” said head coach Carl Neufeld in an interview with smumustangs.com.

“You have to give credit to the Fighting Irish. We had our chances, but couldn’t get over the hump.”

The Mustangs were scheduled to play another match over the weekend against DePaul University, but the match was postponed due to rain. Instead, SMU will take on UT-Arlington on Wednesday, April 7 at 5 p.m.

UTA’s Mavericks (5-8) are coming off a 5-2 victory against DePaul University last Saturday. Before the match against SMU, UTA will first play Texas A&M Corpus Christi on April 6.