Oct. 25, 2007
Results
Tulsa, Okla. -
The Illinois State men's tennis team performed well against strong competition at the Wilson/ITA Central Region Championships on Thursday, Oct. 25, in Tulsa, Okla. The `Birds scored five total singles wins on the day, and had a couple of chances to knock off nationally ranked opponents.
In singles, the `Birds were able to advance three players into the second round of the main draw. Junior Nuno Jacinto won his first round match with German Perez (Arkansas Little-Rock), 6-2, 6-2, In the second round Jacinto lost a hard fought match to nationally ranked no. 15, Ivan Puchkarev (Oklahoma State), 3-6, 6-3, 6-1. Senior Luka Marinkovic beat Juan Carlos Nunez (UALR), in straight sets, 6-2, 6-2, before dropping his second match to nationally ranked foe, Dalibar Pavic (Drake), 6-4, 6-4. Sophomore Xavier Riart-Ferrer also won his opening round match, besting Victor Wibreus (UALR), 6-4, 6-2. Riart-Ferrer was then defeated in the second round by Ricardo Sariano (Tulsa), 6-1, 6-2.
In other singles action, senior Oscar Beich was bested in the first round by Thiago Dos Santos (Wichita State), 6-4, 6-1. Later, Beich lost in the consolation. Junior Daniel Tobar was defeated in the opening round by Albert Ballesta (WSU), 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, before bouncing back to earn a consolation tourney victory. Sophomore Michael Hobson rebounded from an opening main draw defeat to Tyler Tarnansky (Arkansas), 6-3, 6-3, to claim a consolation victory..
Head coach Cris James was very pleased with his players' efforts on the day.
"I felt that despite the losses many of our guys played extremely well in singles," said James. "Nuno played outstanding against a tremendous top-20 player from Oklahoma State. Luka played good enough to win, and told me he felt like he should have, against Pavic, who is also ranked. This is just a tournament where there are no easy matches, because of the nature of the tournament often times your no. 5 player faces another teams no. 1. That happened to us a couple times today, and our players still played good tough matches."
In doubles the Redbirds had to end the day without a win for the first time this season. Marinkovic and Tobar lost to Will Gray and Ricardo Soriano (Tulsa), 9-8. The duo of Beich and Jacinto played their first match together this season, and were bested by Juan Carlos Nunez and German Perez (UALR), 9-7. Another first time duo for the `Birds, Hobson and Riart-Ferrer, dropped their match to Marko Ballok and Igor Nikitin (UALR), 8-6.
"I was a little disappointed with the doubles losses, but I will take some of the blame for that," said James. "I wanted to mix up our pairs a little bit and see how certain players played with one another, unfortunately we weren't able to get them any practice time together to build some chemistry before taking the court."
Play continues at the Wilson/ITA Central Region Championships tomorrow Friday, Oct. 26, and continues through Saturday before concluding on Sunday, Oct. 28.
