April 18, 2010
Final Stats
NORMAL, Ill. - The Illinois State men's tennis team claimed the Missouri Valley Conference regular-season title on Senior Day with a, 7-0, sweep of the Drake Bulldogs. Senior Xavier Riart-Ferrer defeated Ryan Drake, 3-6, 7-5, 6-2, on the No. 5 singles court to capture the seventh match point and complete the sweep on ISU's home courts.
"It's an awesome feeling," head coach Cris James said. "It was a close match at one point and I was really nervous. I know we're prepared for that situation, but when you're going for your first conference title it's really nerve wrecking for the players and you don't know for sure how they're going to react if they have a lot of pressure on them. Pressure does a lot of things on the court and it can change things in a hurry."
The Redbirds won the doubles point courtesy of a win from Timon Reichelt and Matej Zlatkovic, who beat Drake's Jean Erasmus and Jonathan Hadash, 8-4, on the No. 2 doubles court. Filip Miljevic and Skip Span won their doubles match as well, defeating Ryan King and Drake, 8-1. Alexander Pelaez and Michael Hobson were downed by Mauricio Ballivian and James McKie, 9-7.
Miljevic was awarded a point on the No. 3 singles court after his opponent, Erasmus, retired due to injury. Span quickly downed Ryan Drake, 6-1, 6-0, at the No. 6 court to make the score 3-0 in favor of the Redbirds. Three of the remaining singles matches extended into a third set and Reichelt's match on the No. 1 court went into a second set tie-breaker. Reichelt was able to clinch the win for Illinois State in the tie-breaker, 7-5, 7-6 (7-5), over Ballivian. Ballivian held a 27-9 record entering Sunday's match against the Redbirds.
The freshman Pelaez scored the fifth point for ISU by defeating Drake's McKie, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3, on the No. 2 singles court. Zlatkovic won his match over Jonathan Hadash after Hadash retired in the third set.
"It was great that Timon could close out the match in straight sets and it was great that Alex got a lead in the third set," James said. "I think that kind of relaxed people everyone else."
Drake now holds a 14-8 record and a 3-2 conference record.
The Redbirds end the regular season with a 14-7 record and a perfect, 5-0, mark in conference play. They will travel to Wichita, Kan., next weekend where they will compete for the Missouri Valley Conference Championship.
"I feel good about next weekend," James said. "I feel much better about the way we've played doubles the last couple of matches. We did a lot of good things and the things we didn't do so well were only small mental errors that we can correct. I think [Sunday's] match is actually going to help prepare us for next weekend."
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