March 11, 2010
Final Stats
MOBILE, Ala. -
Juniors Timon Reichelt and Matej Zlatkovic teamed together to claim the No. 1 doubles match for the No. 70-ranked men's tennis team of Illinois State, and then each added a singles win at the No. 3 and No. 4 spots, respectively, in the Redbirds' 5-2 win over South Alabama Thursday afternoon at the Bruce David Lubel Memorial Tennis Courts.
The victory was the seventh for the season for the Redbirds, against four losses, and the first of the 2009-10 campaign on outdoor courts, while South Alabama fell to 5-6 on the season.
"I wasn't overly thrilled with all of our singles play, but it is a big change going from playing indoors to outdoors," head coach Cris James said. "South Alabama had some impressive wins leading into our match, and anytime you can beat a team that is used to playing outdoors, it's a good win."
Filip Miljevic and Skip Span got Illinois State off to a good start with an 8-4 victory at No. 3 doubles over USA's Lucas Viel and Dauw Kruger. Reichelt and Zlatkovic claimed the doubles' point for the Redbirds with an 8-5 win over Alexandre Bernard and Hanno Bartsch, at No. 1 doubles.
The Redbirds were unable to sweep doubles competition, as the No. 2 team of Alexander Pelaez and Michael Hobson fell to USA's Christian Kuehne and Romain Bocaert, 8-7 (8-6).
"We played good doubles, and it is always an important point to get off to a good start," James said. "We were really unlucky to have lost at No. 2 doubles. I felt like we really carried the game and had opportunities to win it."
After the Jaguars claimed two of the first three completed singles matches, South Alabama and Illinois State were tied, 2-2, with three singles matches left to be played. However, Xavier Riart-Ferrer, Zlatkovic and Reichelt each won their respective singles' match for the 5-3 win. Riart-Ferrer posted a 6-1, 6-4 win over South Alabama's Jairo Seur in No. 6 singles. Zlatkovic downed Bartsch, 6-4, 6-3, to claim No. 4 singles, while Reichelt won 7-5, 6-3 over Kuehne in No. 3 singles.
Palaez won the first singles match for the Redbirds, when his No. 2 singles contest against Bernard was retired during the second set. Palaez was leading, 6-2, 5-1, at the time. Miljevic was stopped, 6-1, 6-1, in No. 1 singles by Bocaert, and Span fell to Kruger, 6-2, 2-6, 6-0, at the No. 5 spot.
The Redbirds will return to action Sunday morning, when Illinois State faces No. 38-ranked Wisconsin in Madison, Wis., at 11 a.m., inside the Nielsen Tennis Stadium.
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