Sept. 30, 2007
Results
OMAHA, Neb. -
The Illinois State men's tennis team wrapped up play at the State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Individual Championships on Sunday, Sept. 30. The Redbirds took two more doubles titles in addition to one on Saturday, including a victory by senior Luka Marinkovic and junior Daniel Tobar over Drake's nationally ranked No. 1 doubles team.
The Redbirds completed their sweep of doubles titles, with two more on Sunday. The tandem of Marinkovic and Tobar upended the nationally ranked pair of Maor Zirkin and Dalibor Pavic (DU) to win the Flight 1 doubles title, 8-6.
Head coach Cris James was impressed by Marinkovic's and Tobar's performance in the match against Drake.
"I'm proud of the guys," said James. "We got a really big win today at No. 1 doubles over a ranked Drake team. This early in the fall, I'm glad to see we've found some chemistry, which isn't easy to find. Hopefully they will take this confidence for the rest of the fall and into the spring."
Marinkovic said he had a good feeling going into the big doubles win.
"We had a short warm-up since we moved inside, but we both felt good starting out," said Marinkovic. "It was a really big win to beat the top doubles team in the conference."
In the Flight 2 finals, Riart-Ferrer and Jacinto wrapped up a solid weekend of play by besting Guilherme Marsiglia and Ivan Mendoza (DU), 8-6.
In singles, the `Birds dropped four singles final matches. In the Flight 2 final, junior Nuno Jacinto was bested by Dalibor Pavic (DU), 6-1, 6-3. Sophomore Xavier Riart-Ferrer dropped his Flight 3 final match against Hugal Vidal (SIU), 6-1, 6-1. In the finals of Flight 5, junior Tobar gave the birds their best shot at winning a singles title, but dropped the match in three sets to Halvar Dil (DU), 6-7, 6-4, 6-3. In the Flight 6 final, sophomore Michael Hobson was defeated by Ricardo Lau (DU), 6-1, 6-3.
James had mixed emotions regarding his team's performance in singles this weekend.
"I'm happy to get four-of-six guys in the finals. Our other two lost in three sets, so they played hard," said James. "Today was disappointing, but we were tested more today than we were earlier in the season."
Through two weekends of competition the Redbirds remain undefeated in doubles competition, winning six doubles titles along the way.
Next weekend the Redbirds head to St. Louis, Mo. for the Saint Louis Invitational. The tournament will be on played over two days, Saturday, Oct. 6 and Sunday, Oct. 7.
