HOUSTON – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) Vaqueros men's tennis team fell 0-7 to the Rice Owls on Saturday at the George R. Brown Tennis Center in the first of three matches this weekend. 
 
Rice (3-1) took the early 1-0 lead after winning two of the three doubles matches. The Owls extended their advantage to 3-0 after Edwardo Morais defeated senior Alberto Mello 6-0, 6-0 in the No. 6 spot and Trinity Grear beat freshman Sam Whitehead 6-3, 6-1 in the No. 4 spot. 
 
UTRGV (0-3) was competitive at the top of the lineup. Junior Misha Kvantaliani went point-for-point with Haoyuan Huang at the No. 1 spot, making Huang's 6-4 win in set one a challenge from start to finish. Kvantaliani went up 2-0 in the second set and pushed the frame to extra games after falling behind 4-5. 
 
Kvantaliani tied the set at 6-6 and then won the tiebreaker 7-3 to take the second set 7-6. The third set was a 10-point tiebreaker, and again it was a back-and-forth affair. Kvantaliana erased a five-point deficit to make things tight at 8-9, but Huang held on for the 10-8 win.  
 
Junior Chris Lawrance showed his fight against Campbell Salmon in the No. 5 spot. After dropping the opening set 1-6, Lawrance jumped out to a 2-0 lead in set two. Salmon closed the set strong to take a 6-4 victory, giving Rice a 4-0 lead and clinching the win. 
 
The Vaqueros will be back in action on Sunday when they head to San Antonio for a pair of matches against St. Mary's at 9:30 a.m. and UTSA at 2 p.m. 
 
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