Sept. 24, 2009
NORMAL, Ill. -
Junior Filip Miljevic will lead the Illinois State men's tennis team at the Ball State Invitational as the Redbirds look to carry their success from two weeks ago into Muncie, Ind. The team expects to face a deeper field and stronger competition when they begin play Friday morning at the Cardinal Creek Tennis Center.
Head coach Cris James is looking forward to seeing how the team will perform this weekend.
"I'm hoping we can follow up our performance at the Louisville Invite with another strong showing," James said. "Tennis is a game of confidence and we have that right now. But it's hard to say how we'll do because confidence can come and go quickly."
Skip Span, Xavier Riart-Ferrer and Matej Zlatkovic will also travel to Ball State this weekend. The other four members of the team will be competing unattached in a men's open event in Champaign-Urbana, Ill. The winner of the open event will receive a wild card berth to an ATP Challenger Tour event which is likely to draw tough competition. James is excited to see how his team performs at both events.
"The Ball State Invite is going to have some deep competition for us and the open event will include some tough opponents because the wild card is available," James said. "There will likely be a lot of great college players at the open and probably some guys looking to go pro as well. It will be good to see how our players do against competition like this."
Play at the Ball State Invitational will begin at 8 a.m. Friday and will feature 15 regional teams including DePaul, Louisville, Marquette, Valparaiso and Xavier.
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