Surging with all the energy he could muster, Michigan sophomore Shaun Bernstein couldn’t quite reach the teasing lob from his opponent.

After waiting nearly two-and-a-half hours, the crowd was left to wait a little longer for a winner. Following a split in the first two sets, Bernstein pushed his No. 2 singles match with LSU's Neal Skupski to a dramatic third-set tiebreak in the Michigan men’s tennis team's 5-2 victory on Saturday.

Bernstein eventually found a way to claw back after losing serve early in the tiebreak, squandering four match points of his own then staying alive through three match points before finally winning 7-6(2), 3-6, 7-6 (10).

Victory was imminent when Bernstein amassed a 6-3 lead in the deciding tiebreak, but Skupski wasn’t ready to give in, serving out two points to cut the lead to 6-5.

Bernstein tried to serve-and-volley to close out the match. Spinning his first serve in, Bernstein sprang to the net, but he went too far, and Skupski returned a floating lob that was out of arm's length for Bernstein. He couldn’t backtrack in time to put it away, instead framing it off the head of his racquet, to level the score at six.

“I’m a little disappointed that I don’t think I went after it enough,” Bernstein said. “At that point, when I was serving up a match point, that’s the time to go after it and go for your biggest serve or biggest play, your go-to, and I think I got away from that a little bit.”

But Skupski couldn’t finish, taking leads at 7-6, 8-7, and 9-8, only to see Bernstein hang in to keep the match going.

Bernstein took the lead again at 10-9, but Skupski worked the point calmly on Bernstein’s serve and eventually produced a winner on an approach shot to tie it once more.

On his next serve, Bernstein produced every return from Skupski’s play which moved him from side-to-side, eventually finding a short volley from Skupski. Bernstein then put Skupski on the defensive by forcing another lob, this time easily putting it away for another match point.

After missing his first serve, Skupski couldn’t convert his second, ending a great match in a disappointing fashion. The end was surprising, given that Bernstein could not counter Skupski’s serve for the majority of the match.

“It got a little frustrating that I couldn’t get a read on his serve,” Bernstein said. “It was tough, but I’m happy that it got to a breaker, but then I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t close the breaker when I could. I’m happy to come away with the ‘W’.”

The match was Bernstein’s (4-8 overall, 3-2 dual) second consecutive win at home following his win against Louisville on Thursday.

“I was impressed. I think that was a really good win for Shaun, probably one of the better wins he has had since he has been at Michigan,” said Michigan coach Bruce Berque. “The nice thing is that he was very competitive, very resilient, and put into practice a lot of the things in his game that he has been working so hard to improve. It was nice to see him rewarded for all his hard work.”