After the excitement of defeating No. 5 Duke in a close 4-3 match the night before, the No. 25 Illinois men’s tennis team was shut out for the second time in eight days by No. 15 Tennessee, falling to 3-3 on the season.

The Illini upset the Blue Devils in a victory that came down to a three-set, singles decider between Illinois freshman Jared Hiltzik and Duke’s Fred Saba. Hiltzik ignited the Atkins Tennis Center with cheers as he finished off Saba 7-6, 4-6, 6-3.

“Jared did a good job of staying in the moment,” head coach Brad Dancer said. “He was able to capitalize, had a calm equilibrium and was what we needed him to be for the match.”

Dancer said the biggest struggle was the Illini’s erratic doubles play with faults and missed shots that make it the team’s “Achilles’ heel” so far in the season.

“Our whole (doubles) percentage is far below what would be average,” Dancer said. “We have to figure out a way to fix that.”

In a rematch with Tennessee, the Illini fought back on court three of doubles after evening the score with a win on court two. Crowd energy fueled Illini sophomore Farris Gosea and Hiltzik as they came back from 5-0 to tie up the set 6-6.

“I think it was great to have the support of the Net Nuts,” Dancer said of the student fan organization. “They did superb in terms of galvanizing our players.”

It was Volunteer sophomores, Hunter Reese and Brandon Fickey, who won the team point, finishing off the Illini duo 8-7 (7-5 tiebreaker).

Illinois’ game got rough shortly after, losing five of the first six sets.

“Such a close doubles point was lost, and we just got off to a rough start in singles,” sophomore Ross Guignon said. “We had guys fighting and kind of prolong the match, but we never really changed the momentum.”

The relentless assault continued into the second sets and the Illini were skunked by the Vols, 4-0. No excuses were made, Dancer said, Tennessee just played a better game, like last time.

“It was a really hard, tough situation (for Tennessee), to come back here back to back weeks and win both of these matches,” Dancer said. “I think it says a lot about their program and coaching staff.”

Illinois will host its fifth, back-to-back home game against No. 9 Kentucky next Saturday, when Dancer said he wants to recalibrate, resettle and figure out how to become a more consistent team.

“Our preparation for this week was good, and we’ll just do it again for Kentucky,” Hiltzik said.

J.J. can be reached at [email protected].