Any excitement that came with the men's tennis team's first match of the season quickly turned into frustration, and ended with disappointment.

With a lot of young talent, and two seniors at the helm, the team entered Wednesday night's game against the University of Illinois-Chicago with high expectations. But expectations do not show up in the final score.

"You can't expect anything just because you work hard in practice," said head coach Steve Rodecap. "You've got to work hard every time you lace up your shoes."

Instead, the team came out with a lackluster, uninspired performance, losing 4-3.

Marquette's No. 1 doubles team of Eigis Vedrickas and Ian Kawas were broken on their first serve to fall behind 3-0, a deficit they would not recover from.

"Today was one of those days where, from the beginning, I was naturally not playing my best tennis," Vedrickas said.

Vedrickas' frustration carried into his singles match. As UIC's Ivan Kovaler placed one perfect shot after another, Vedrickas could only shake his head and swat at dead balls in disgust.

Despite Marquette's struggles, they had a chance to win the season opener in the final match between sophomore Brett Binkley and UIC freshman Adriano Liccardo. With all other matches over, the entire Marquette team was on one side of the court and the UIC team on the other. The intensity of the match naturally skyrocketed.

"There obviously is more pressure, but I stayed focused," Binkley said.

The pressure fell especially hard on the serving player. Once the match became the focus of attention, three serves in a row were broken before Liccardo called for an injury timeout with the set tied 3-3.

"I really felt like we were in control at that point," Rodecap said. "I thought the kid (Liccardo) would crack and he didn't."

Binkley said the timeout helped him get pumped up, and it showed when he swept the game. But the momentum did not stay with Binkley, and the match eventually went to a tiebreaker, which Liccardo won 8-6.

"Tennis is a team game, but when it comes down to it, I kind of feel like it was my fault," Binkley said.

Although Binkley was down on himself after the match, Rodecap remained confident in his young star.

"If there's anything I know about this team, it's that Brett will rebound," Rodecap said.

Aside from that, Rodecap was left with a lot of questions about his team, and will have to wait until Sunday's game against Wright State to answer them.

"We're not going to sleep well until Sunday, until we can get back out there," Rodecap said.