NORMAL, Ill. – For the second straight day, the Illinois State men's tennis team could not secure the fourth and final point for match victory, dropping a 4-3 contest to Northern Illinois Sunday afternoon at the Gregory Street Courts.
Freshman Christoffer Greve highlighted play for ISU once again, winning his fifth-straight match and beating NIU's Carlos Manzanas, 6-2, 6-4. Senior Jacob Wilson and junior Rolando Torrellas notched the other two Redbird victories on the day, both straight-set defeats over the Huskies' Louis-Philippe Hamel and Tom Hjertonsson, respectively.
"It's tough when you don't take that doubles point," said head coach Mark Klysner. "You've got to claw your way back in, and in the tennis world, trying to win four out of six singles when you've lost the doubles is huge compared to when you just have to win three [matches]."
Illinois State (6-9, 0-1) started the afternoon losing the doubles point to Northern Illinois (13-4). Junior Jakub Eisner and Torrellas went back-and-fourth in their No. 1 flight against NIU's Kevin Daun and Georg Lundkvist, but lost by a score of 7-6. Sophomore Dylan Steffens and Greve had an early lead in their No. 3 flight, but were beaten by the Huskies' Simon Formont and Hjertonsson, 7-5. For only the second time all season, senior Muddappa Appanervanda and sophomore Urh Krajnc Domiter played together in the No. 2 flight, but their match went unfinished.
As was the case yesterday, today's match came down to the final flight of the day. Eisner and NIU's Frederic Cadieux split the first two sets of their No. 1 flight match, but Cadieux pulled away in the final set to put Eisner and the Redbirds away, 4-3.
"With the injuries that we've had, its forced two of the three doubles' teams have new partners," said Klysner. "They haven't had enough time to play with each other and gain enough confidence. Another week of practice and playing together, I think, will definitely help."
Illinois State will be back in action next weekend when the squad heads to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, to compete in the MTSU Shootout, March 27-29.
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