Sept. 24, 2009
LAWRENCE, Kan. - Senior Julia Zubkova and sophomore Aniko Kiss will lead the Illinois State women's tennis team at the Kansas Invitational at the First Serve Tennis courts in Lawrence, Kan., this weekend. The three-day invitational will feature both singles and doubles play.
Coming off of a successful season opener, head coach Chris Hoover and his team, look to have another good performance this weekend.
"I expect this weekend to be more competitive than our last tournament," Hoover said. "The season is still only a few weeks in. We still have to try out some combinations of players and find out who plays well with each other."
Zubkova and Kiss will be teaming up for the first time in doubles play this weekend, as well as juniors Maria Occhipinti and Carmen Peters and sophomores Franziska Steinhardt and Hannah Esker. Rounding out the doubles pairings for the Redbirds are freshman Ariance Maack and senior Natalia Lech.
"Hopefully some of these pairs play well together," Hoover said. "If they do, maybe we'll keep them together next time. I'm looking for Carmen to be ready to go this weekend, and maybe see Ariane Maack or Franziska Sterinhardt have a breakout performance as well."
In addition to Illinois State, participants for the invitational include St. Louis, Missouri-Kansas City and Kansas. The tournament will begin each day at 9 a.m. starting Friday Sept. 25 and running through Sunday Sept. 27.
GoRedbirds.com: Your online source for Illinois State Athletics, tickets, TRC gifts, multimedia, Redbird merchandise, photos and more.
