Oct. 12, 2011
COLUMBUS, Ohio -
The Illinois State men's tennis team will be competing Thursday through Monday in the ITA Regional Tournament at the Stickney Tennis Center. There are 21 participating schools. Competition includes Notre Dame, Illinois, and Ohio State.
Head Coach Cris James is looking forward to the tournament.
"Other than the ITA All-American, the ITA Regional is our big tournament in the fall," said James. "The winner of singles play and the winner of doubles play get a spot in the ITA's indoor tournament later in the fall, so it's a pretty big deal. Our region has a lot of strong players but our top players can very well make a run and win. This tournament is as an opportunity for our other guys to compete at a high level, as well."
Muddappa Appanervanda, Jusso Ojanen, Willi Peter, Skip Span, and Jacob Wilson will be competing in the qualifying round.
All of our young guys have talent," said James. "They are capable of doing some good things and what I'm looking for is for them to do those good things more consistently. I told them it's not good enough to have one good set but they have to be able to play a good match. Then, once they play a good match, they have to be able to play another good match."
Alexander Pelaez and Tuomas Manner automatically qualified into the main draw.
"I hope Pelaez and Manner continue to play like they did at the ITA All-American, especially in doubles play," said James. "I think they have a shot to go far in this tournament."
James wants his team to focus on being mentally tough.
"My message to the guys was that we need to be a little more fired up on the court sometimes," said James. "We also need to be a little bit more positive. When adversity happens or when things go poorly, we need to get determined rather than disappointed."
Play is set to begin Thursday.
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