LEWISTON – The Lewiston tennis community and what seemed like half of the Bates College campus did their best Sunday to push Ben Stein and Amrit Rupasinghe into the national finals of the Division III Men’s Doubles Championships.

But a pair of untimely breaks of serve spelled the end of the duo’s dynamic run.

Andy Bryan and Charlie Paukert of Gustavus Adolphus showed solid net play and resolve enough to come back from an early break against a hostile crowd to upend Stein and Rupasinghe 7-5, 6-4 to earn a place in the final match.

“They made a few good shots, and we missed a couple of volleys we should have made,” Stein said. “That’s the match, right there.”

Stein and Rupasinghe broke early – and at love – against Paukert to take a 4-3 lead in the opening set, but the pair from Gustavus Adolphus broke right back in the next game. Bryan and Paukert broke Rupasinghe a second time with the score 6-5 to secure the first set.

“I couldn’t energize off my serve,” Rupasinghe said. “That’s basically how we lost.”

On Saturday, in the quarterfinals round, the Bates pair had fallen behind after the first set, too, only to rally in the second to win a tiebreak.

Not so Sunday.

Paukert and Bryan broke Stein at 5-4 to take the second set.

The crowd of more than 400 gathered at Court 1 at Bates’ Wallach Tennis Complex gave their team a standing ovation as they walked back to their chairs at center court.

“They’ve been great all week,” Stein said. “Who know if we would have even made it here without them.”

In the doubles final later in the evening, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps pair Guillaume Schils and Larry Wang capped the six-day tournament with a 6-3, 6-4 victory Bryan and Paukert.

Singular sensation

Kenyon College sophomore Michael Greenberg defeated Middlebury College senior Filip Marinkovic 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 to capture the NCAA Division III Men’s Tennis Singles Championship.

“I had to make sure kept being aggressive, moving him around,” Greenberg said. “He came back swinging in the second and third. It is the national championship, and the adrenaline kicked in, I’m sure. Luckily, I was able to stave them off and serve out both sets.”

Greenberg, of Chapel Hill, N.C., lost the first set as Marinkovic won five straight games to come back from a 3-1 deficit.

Marinkovic, of Toronto, struggled with his serve for most of the match and dropped the first game of the second set on four consecutive double faults.

“I think I double-faulted, like, eleven times in two games,” Marinkovic said. “I just literally couldn’t jump up to hit the ball anymore.”

But the gritty senior, who played more games and sets than any other player over the six days of the NCAA Championships, battled back. A fresher Greenberg prevailed, however, as the difference in energy level between the two players seemed increasingly evident as the match wore on.