EUGENE, Ore. - The University of Idaho men's tennis team knows this ending. Playing short-handed, the Vandals came up just shy of a victory in their season-opener. UI fell to Northern Arizona, 4-3, in a match played at the University of Oregon.

"We played a good match that could have gone either way," Idaho assistant coach Kula Oda said. "If we played these guys 10 more times, we could win more than half of them."

The Vandals top three of Eddie Brisbois, Stephen De Silva and Brad Lum-Tucker all won easily in straight sets. Brisbois took out Daniel Lundstrom 6-4, 6-2, while De Silva won 6-4 and 6-3 against Jeff Johnson. Lum-Tucker was the only member of the trio to get pressed as he won 7-6 in a tight first set before polishing off Adrian Venturi match 6-2.

The bottom half of the singles lineup fared just the opposite as each player had to jump up one spot in the order with Fredrik von Sydow's absence. Because of arthroscopic knee surgery two weeks ago, von Sydow will be out until the end of February.

Moving up to No. 4, Chris Faulman fell to Jonathon John in a close three-set match, 3-6, 7-6, 6-2. Freshman Hector Mucharraz and sophomore Fabian Dummett each fell in straight sets.

The doubles matches were one game away from being as close as humanly possible. Brisbois and Brock Berry lost at No. 1 doubles to Lundstrom and John 9-7, while Lum-Tucker and Mucharraz bested Johnson and Venturi 8-6. That left only No. 3 doubles to decide the team point and Jeremy Coll and Thibault Schram defeated James Cromwell and De Silva 8-5 - the only match not decided by the two-game minimum.

"We came out a little jittery in the doubles with it being our first match of the season," Oda said. "Luckily, we settled down after that. There were breaks at the end of each match that just didn't go our way."

The Vandals are back in action tomorrow at UO as they take on the host Ducks at 11 a.m. Idaho then has two weeks to prepare for its home-opener against Utah State, Feb. 10.