NORMAL, Ill. – The Illinois State men's tennis team will officially open the 2022-23 season at its first team tournament of the fall this weekend, when the Redbirds head north to compete in the River Forest Collegiate Tennis Invitational hosted by Northern Illinois.
The teams will play a round of doubles matches on Friday morning beginning at 9 a.m. and then two rounds of singles in the afternoon. The event will conclude with the final two rounds of doubles on Saturday morning, followed by the singles finals in the afternoon. The tournament will be held at the River Forest Tennis Club, with some matches also taking place at the Oak Park Tennis Center.Â
The Redbirds will be competing against DePaul, Northern Illinois, St. Louis, UIC, Eastern Illinois and Washington University (Mo)., over the weekend. The entire tournament will be played on clay courts and is free and open to the public.
"I am looking forward to this this weekend's tournament and the entire fall schedule, as we have a completely new team with several young players mixed with a few veterans," ISU head coach Mark Klysner said. "This weekend should be a fun one as always on clay, so I'm not too concerned with results as a lot of our new guys are still getting acclimated to collegiate tennis."
This weekend's tournament will be the first of five scheduled this fall for the Redbirds, who will next head to Tulsa, Oklahoma, from October 1-4 to compete at the ITA All-American Championships. ISU will then return home to host the 6th annual Redbird Invitational October 7-9, before competing in the ITA Midwest Regionals in Champaign from October 20-24. The fall slate will wrap up November 11-13 in Des Moines, Iowa, at the annual Drake Invite.
"The ITA All-Americans and Regionals will be challenging as always and we will see how many guys we get into those draws," Klysner stated. "As for our home Redbird Invitational, I'm expecting upwards of six to eight schools joining us so it should be a great event that we hope all our fans can come out and watch."
Following the completion of the fall tournament portion of the schedule, the Redbirds will begin their spring dual-meet slate in late January at home against UIC. For continued schedule announcements and match time updates, stay tuned to the men's tennis schedule on GoRedbirds.com.
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