Final Day Of River Forest Collegiate Invitational Cut Short By Rain

RIVER FOREST, Ill. – Heading into the final day of the River Forest Collegiate Tennis Invitational, Illinois State was poised to bring home a lot of hardware with players in championship matches in five of the six singles draws and first round wins in doubles action in two of the three pairings. However, rain played havoc with the final day of competition on Saturday and cut things short after the doubles matches were completed in the morning and before the singles championship matches could finish.

"What a fantastic start to the fall season," ISU head coach Mark Klysner said. "We've got some work to do in doubles, but I am super happy with the fact that we won 7 of 9 doubles matches between the three pairings. As for singles, I couldn't have asked for more. Six flights of singles and we had a guy in the final of five of the flights. It is too bad the rain came in and cancelled the finals matches, but we certainly showed we have a great group who can do some big things this year."

Two of the three doubles draws for the Redbirds had themselves in championship matches on Saturday, as both the teams of Ming-Chieh Chiu and Adrian Dibildox and Tomas Valencia and Caden Scarlett won their second-round matches to advance to the title matches. The No. 3 draw of Valencia and Scarlett were able to pick up some hardware, as they defeated the team of Schwebel/Lermolov (UIC) by a score of 7-5. Chiu and Dibildox came in second in Draw No. 2, after they were edged out 6-4 by the team of Boone and Evans from Western Michigan.

In Draw No. 1, Tin Ostro and Emiliano Gonzales bounced back after a loss in round one on the first day, to win both of their matches on Saturday to win the consolation championship with a 6-3 win over Bucan and Wilson from UIC.

Redbirds will be back in action beginning on September 30 for the ITA All-American Championships hosted by Tulsa.

DOUBLES: 
#1 Draw: Ostro/Gonzales (ISU) def. Wallace/ Karlstad (EIU) 7-6 (4)
     Ostro/Gonzales (ISU) def. Bucan/Wilson (UIC) 6-3 (Consolation Championship)
#2 Draw: Chiu/Diblidox (ISU) def. Riera/White (EIU) 6-4
     Boone/Evans (WMU) def. Chiu/Dibildox (ISU) 6-4 (Championship Match)
#3 Draw: Valencia/Scarlett (ISU) def. Berdullas/Welker (NIU) 7-6
     Valencia/Scarlett (ISU) def. Schwebel/Lermolov (UIC) 7-5 (Championship Match)

GoRedbirds.com and the Illinois State Redbirds App:  Your sources for Illinois State tickets, Weisbecker Athletic Fund gifts, multimedia, Redbird merchandise, photos and more.