April 8, 2010
Final Stats
BLOOMINGTON, Ill. - Timon Reichelt clinched a victory for the Illinois State men's tennis team with a, 3-6, 6-2, 6-2, win at No. 1 singles against Bradley Thursday afternoon at the Evergreen Racquet Club in Bloomington, Ill. The Redbirds swept the Braves, 7-0, to advance to 11-7 on the season and 2-0 in Missouri Valley Conference. They are currently tied for first place in the Valley with Wichita State.
The Redbirds square off with the Shockers this Saturday, Apr. 10.
"It wasn't our best performance today but we got the win," head coach Cris James said. "We had a couple guys out and I would guess that the team is looking forward to Saturday's big match, but it is what it is. I told the team, anything that you can learn and get better from is mostly coming from matches and not practice at this point in the season. The thing you can take out of this match is to compartmentalize it, and I think that is something that all great athletes do. Great athletes will take these performances and throw them away and it won't affect their confidence. We'll move forward and be ready for Saturday."
At No. 3 doubles, Filip Miljevic and Skip Span were down 2-1 early but came back strong and defeated Bradley's Eric Nguyen and Trevor McGrath, 8-4. Reichelt and Matej Zlatkovic cruised past Brock Reiman and Richard Robertson, 8-2, at No. 2 doubles to capture the doubles point for the Redbirds.
In singles, Reichelt defeated Milos Romic to collect his 19th singles win of the season. Romic entered Thursday's match with an 11-5 singles dual-match record. Zlatkovic played with confidence at No. 3 singles and had multiple well-placed drop shots. He defeated Callen Fraychineaud, 6-1, 6-4, to advance to a 23-12 overall singles record this season.
Pelaez faced off against Bradley's Juan Cuadrado on the No. 2 singles court and took the first set 6-3. Cuadrado battled back and won the second set, 6-4. In the tiebreaker, Pelaez played tough and was able to win the match with a 6-3 third-set victory.
"During the match there were a few players who had situations where they made a few bad shots," James said. "For whatever reason, they weren't playing as well as they usually do, but those are they situations they have to be able to throw away. I think overall we did that [Thursday], but for some people it took a little longer to settle down."
The Redbirds will continue conference play this weekend when they take on Wichita State Saturday, Apr. 10, in Wichita, Kan. The match is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m., at the Sheldon Coleman Tennis Complex. The winner of Saturday's showdown will take sole possession of first place in the MVC.
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