The No. 22 UK men’s tennis team hosted the No. 3 Ohio State Buckeyes at the Boone Tennis Center on Wednesday, but they were unable to finish the upset as the Cats lost 4-2.

UK now falls to 13-8 on the season with three matches remaining until the SEC Tournament. Wednesday’s match was UK’s final non-conference match of the season, and UK finished with a 7-5 non-conference record.

The Cats were in a good position to pull off the upset midway through the match despite dropping the doubles point. The only doubles pair to win a match was the duo of Cesar Bourgois and Gus Benson, but UK’s other two doubles pairs lost their matches, giving Ohio State the doubles point.

To start singles play, senior Trey Yates junior Ryotaro Matsumura each won their singles matches to give UK a 2-1 lead. Yates won his match comfortably while No. 26 Matsumura had to battle against the third ranked men’s tennis player in the country, Mikael Torpegaard.

Matsumura dropped the first set to Torpegaard 7-6, but came back to win the final two sets 6-3, 6-4. That was Matsumura’s seventh win against an ITA ranked opponent all season in eight matches, and his record against all opponents improved to 15-2.

This was Torpegaard’s third loss of the season, and his individual record now stands at 7-3 on the top court. 

However, Matsumura’s wasn’t able to spark any momentum in his teammates as the Cats would lose the next three singles matches, giving the Buckeye the 4-2 win. All three of those matches went into third sets, and No. 123 Martin Joyce’s 6-2 third set win over UK junior Austin Hussey is what ended the match.

UK’s second highest ranked individual player, No. 54 senior Will Bushamuka, lost his match in three sets on Wednesday that gave Ohio State their second point. 

Bushamuka was coming off two victories over ranked opponents in the last week and a half, and the loss to No. 43 JJ Wolf snapped Bushamuka’s six-match win streak.

UK’s next match will be on April 8 against Vanderbilt. The match will begin at the Boone Tennis Center at 2 p.m.