NORMAL, Ill. – The Illinois State women's tennis team will travel west on I-74 this weekend to participate in the Bradley Invitational Tournament. The tournament will start on Friday, September 20, and will go till Sunday, September 22.
The 'Birds will be sending five players to compete in the invitational against Bradley, SIUE, Western Michigan, and Saint Louis. The tournament will be a bracket-style, with four flights of singles and two flights of doubles brackets.
Junior Laura Fitzgerald and freshman Elana Jankulovska kicked off the fall season last weekend at the Cougar Classic at Chicago State. Fitzgerald and Jankulovska were undefeated (4-0) last weekend in singles play and went 1-2 in doubles action.
This will be the first match of the season for sophomore Tara Damnjanovic, who was a key player for the Redbirds in winning the MVC Championship last season. At the No. 2 spot, Damnjanovic finished 12-7 in singles play and 13-8 in doubles play. This will also be the first match for senior Laura Arciniegas, who transferred to ISU from the College of Charleston, where she redshirted her last season due to an injury.
"This is a great event to get a lot of tough matches in before the MVC Individual Championship in two weeks," ISU head coach Maja Kovacek said. "We've had a hard few weeks of practice and I can see that the team is just itching to compete. Tara and Jelena are a new doubles team and I'm excited to see what they can do together, as well as our newcomer Laura Arciniegas who's competing in her first event as a Redbird."
Play will start at 10 a.m. on Friday, and 9 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Results can be found at https://bradleybraves.com/sports/2019/9/18/2019-bradley-invitational.aspx
