Alexander Pelaez and
Tuomas Manner won the final round of flight one doubles play Sunday in the State Farm MVC Individual Championship at the Roger Knapp Tennis Center in Des Moines, Iowa. Four ISU players lost in the final rounds of singles play at the competition.
The Redbirds won 3-of-4 matches in doubles action starting with Manner and Pelaez taking out Bradley's Justin Abrams and Juan Diego Cuadrado in the semifinal round of flight one doubles play, 8-2. The pair continued to impress defeating James McKie and Jean Erasmus of Drake, 8-6, giving them the championship title of flight one doubles play.
Jordan Badenko and Willi Peter defeated #42 nationally ranked Brandon Florez and Martijin Admiraal of Southern Illinois in the semifinal round of flight two doubles play, 9-7. Drake's Alen Salibasic and Robin Goodman took out the 'Birds in the final round of flight two doubles play, 8-3.
Head Coach Cris James was impressed with Badenko and Peter's win against Southern.
"Jordan and Willi played well," said James. "They jumped out to a pretty big lead and then Southern came back but we stuck with it and were able to survive it. I'm not sure if Jordan and Willi will be a pair for us in doubles action going forward but they definitely got better and better as the competition went on. I think they learned some things and grew up, overall, in their singles play, as well."
ISU lost all of their singles play matches in the final rounds against Drake, beginning with Anis Ghorbel defeating Pelaez in flight one singles play, 7-6 (6), 6-0. Manner was defeated in flight two singles play, 6-3, 6-0, against Jean Erazmus while Skip Span lost in flight three singles play to James McKie, 6-2, 6-1. Robin Goodman beat Peter in flight four singles play, 6-3, 6-2.
"I'll give a lot of credit to Drake, they played really well," said James. "For us, I'm not exactly sure what went wrong, if anything. They just outplayed us. I think the main thing is that we have to be able to stick to it and sustain our level. A couple of the matches were pretty close in the first set and we just didn't stay with it, which Drake is very good at doing."
James is happy with his team's performance, overall.
"I feel like we had a pretty good tournament," said James. "We made significant progress, especially from where we were last weekend. We had kind of a disappointing finish, losing our singles matches, but if you would have told me we were going to have two teams in the doubles' finals and four guys in the singles' finals going into the weekend, I would have been pretty happy with that."
The Redbirds will be back in action in their first home match Sunday, Feb. 5, against Western Michigan at the Evergreen Racquet Club in Normal, Ill. Play is set to being at 1 p.m.
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