In a matchup of top-10 nationally-ranked teams on Sunday, the top-ranked Panther men's tennis team fell by a 5-4 score during a home NESCAC contest with Wesleyan (11-2, 6-1). The match took place on the sun-soaked Proctor Tennis Courts. Middlebury (16-2, 6-1), which had its eight-match winning streak snapped, returns to action next Sunday when closes out the regular-season portion of its schedule with a 1:00 p.m. contest at 13th-ranked Amherst.

During doubles play, the Cardinals were victorious in two of the three matches. The No. 3 duo of Steven Chen and Cameron Daniels got the visitors on the board with an 8-3 win over Middlebury's Timo van der Geest and Peter Martin. The hosts tied the score at 1-1 when Lubomir Cuba and William de Quant recorded a narrow 9-7 victory against Michael Liu and Jake Roberts in the top spot. The No. 2 flight of Tiago Eusebio and Maxwell Smith edged Panthers Hamid Derbani and Kyle Schlanger by an 8-6 tally, giving Wesleyan a 2-1 advantage.

In singles action, the Panthers knotted the match when de Quant won in the No. 2 spot by scores of 6-4, 6-3 over Liu. The Cardinals took a 4-2 lead behind wins from Eusebio over Derbani in the third slot (6-2, 6-4) and Daniels over van der Geest (7-6 (4), 6-2) at No. 5.

In the back-and-forth match, Middlebury responded with a pair of victories, knotting the score at 4-4. Cuba dropped the first set to Chen atop the lineup, but won the next two sets for a 2-6, 6-4, 6-3 victory. Schlanger and Joachim Samson split the first two sets at No. 4 before Schlanger earned the team point for the Panthers (6-3, 2-6, 6-3).

The match was decided by the last flight left on the court at No. 6. Wesleyan's Princeton Carter fought back from a set down for a 2-6, 7-6 (4), 6-2 victory over Allen Jackson, giving the visitors the hard-fought 5-4 win.