Feb. 15, 2008
NORMAL, Ill. -
The Illinois State men's tennis team will continue its spring schedule this weekend by hosting Washington (St. Louis) Saturday, Feb. 16 and Chicago State Sunday, Feb. 17 at the Evergreen Racquet Club in Bloomington, Ill. The matches will be the first of four-consecutive home contests for the Redbirds.
The Redbirds will open the homestand by taking on Division III member Washington University (2-0). The Bears are currently ranked No. 7 in Division III. Illinois State men's tennis head coach Cris James will be quite familiar with his coaching rival on Saturday. James and Washington head coach Roger Follmer played and coached together at Purdue from 1995-99.
"Washington is good," said James. "Talking to Roger, he thinks they have a shot to win it all at the Division III level. Some Division III schools are not real serious with tennis, but Roger takes his program really serious. He treats it just like a Division I program. He recruits very hard and is able to attract some really good players. The academic situation they have that is a real strong selling point for them. Players that go to Washington are often looking at Ivy League schools as well."
On Sunday, the `Birds will face Chicago State (1-2). The Cougars, whose lone victory was a 5-2 win over Wayne State, come into the match on the heels of a 7-0 setback last weekend at No. 62 Western Michigan.
"I'm really looking for our guys to play better this weekend," said James. "I felt that as a team we did not play real well last weekend (Feb. 9-10). Going into the weekend I felt that we could have won both matches we had, and coming out I felt we could have easily lost both. In some ways we were lucky to get out of Northern Illinois with a win."
The Redbirds are returning home after playing the last four matches on the road.
"It is always nice to get back home," said James. "There are a lot of little things that we don't have to deal with at home, and it is a lot easier to prepare for these matches."
Illinois State lost the first three matches of the trip, before besting Northern Illinois in a come-from-behind fashion. Freshman Filip Miljevic was the last one on the court with the match knotted at 3-3, as he came from being down 5-4 in the third set to defeat Javier Bernabe, 6-2, 2-6, 7-5.
"Filip winning the other day was certainly huge," said James. "In the match against UTA he really felt that he could have won a match that went down to the wire. For him to bounce back and win a close match is really important. You never want a player to lose a couple of close matches and lose confidence in those close situations."
