The No. 46 men’s tennis team (10-8) looks to regain its winning ways today against the No. 44 Tulsa Golden Hurricane (12-8) after dropping its third match in the last four tries Wednesday afternoon.

Hosting the No. 11 Oklahoma State University Cowboys (13-2), the Mustangs fell in two of three close doubles sets to fall behind early, 1-0.

Though juniors Peter Oredsson and Henrik Soderberg beat the Cowboys’ Juan Felipe Diaz and Boris Kuharic, 8-5, the Mustangs lost the other two sets by scores of 9-8 and 8-4.

“The matches were really close,” said sophomore Elliot Engberg. “I thought overall we played really well.”

Senior Paul McNaughton got SMU back up to par with OSU when he easily defeated No. 30 Mark Van Elden to knot the score at one. Van Elden fell behind 4-0 in the second set before deciding to forfeit.

At No. 6, freshman David Kuezer took down Diaz in consecutive sets, but it was not enough to overcome a quartet of Cowboys who beat their singles opponents to give OSU a 5-2 win.

According to senior Gwinyai Chingoka, the factor that set Oklahoma State apart in close sets was an ability to make the most of their chances to score.

“They took advantage of everything they had,” he said. “We didn’t capitalize when we had opportunities and they did.”

Despite the setback, team members maintain a positive outlook on this weekend’s matches.

“We should play pretty well,” Engberg said. “It should be another close match [against Tulsa].”

Chingoka agreed, adding, “Everybody is real confident.

“We played really well against OSU, and the scores prove it. We’ve got a good chance going into this weekend.”

The Mustangs will host Tulsa this afternoon at 2:00 p.m., their first conference game of the year, before playing the No. 20 Notre Dame Fighting Irish (15-5) Sunday at noon. Both matches will be held at Haggar Tennis Stadium.