Junior Amer Delic defeated No. 2-seed and second-ranked Benedikt Dorsch of Baylor, 6-4, 6-3, to capture the 2003 NCAA Singles Championship, and the junior-freshman duo of Brian Wilson and Rajeev Ram made it a clean sweep for the Fighting Illini when they followed up Delic's match with a 6-4, 5-7, 6-1 triumph in the NCAA Doubles title tilt over San Diego State's Oliver Maiberger and Ryan Redondo this afternoon in Athens, Ga.

Those two wins, coupled with the team title the Illini (32-0) earned last Tuesday, earned the Orange and Blue the Triple Crown of college tennis. It is the 18th time a team has captured all three titles since the NCAA team championship competition was established in 1946. In addition, it is the fourth time that one team has won all three tournaments since 1977, when the current dual-match format was adopted to determine the team championship. Stanford pulled off the feat in 1992 and 1998, and Georgia did it in 2001. However, this is the first time since 1977 that it has been accomplished with one player winning the singles championship and two others taking the doubles crown.

The singles championship match, as it happened, turned out to be the rubber match of the season between Delic and Dorsch, as the two had split their previous two contests last fall. The match remained on serve through most of the first set. It wasn't until Game 9 that Delic broke Dorsch's serve. The key shot in that game a blistering backhand by Delic that skimmed past Dorsch's left side.

The Baylor sophomore cracked a little earlier in the second set. Although his shoulder was extremely sore and tired after having played in 16 championship-level matches (10 singles, six doubles) in a span of 10 days, Delic continued to pound serve after serve at Dorsch, and came after him at the net repeatedly. Delic, ranked and seeded No. 3, broke Dorsch in Game 5, taking the lead, 3-2, and then again in Game 9, which proved to be the last one.

"Thank God it wasn't a three-setter," said Delic, Illinois' first-ever national singles champion. "My arm would have fallen off.

"I served well today; there were no break points against me. Although my shoulder and my ankle were bothering me, I had no one to complain to. I knew I had to be on the attack all of the time; my main goal was to stay aggressive, and it paid off. Dorsch would have preferred longer rallies--he is an aggressive baseliner, but his backhand wasn't working as well today as it usually does. So I was able to exploit that."

Delic lost only four singles sets in the 10 matches in which he competed. His triumph gave the Big Ten its first national singles champion since 1982 when Michigan's Mike Leach won it.

Illinois' doubles triumph took a bit longer than the 59 minutes Delic took to earn his hardware. The score was 2-2 after the first four games of the first set, but that portion of the match wasn't without incident. Redondo went sprawling into a large decorative arrangement of plants located well away from the corner of the court as he tried in vain to return a Wilson groundstroke. Although he was down for a couple of minutes, he showed no ill effects from his tumble.

In fact, he and Maiberger drew first blood two games later, tallying the first break and taking a 3-2 lead. The Aztecs held serve and extended the lead to 4-2 and nearly to 5-2, but something clicked and Wilson and Ram survived a break point in Game 7, then caught fire and won the last four games in a row to capture the first set.

In the second set Illinois kept it even through 10 games, although Ram and Wilson had to come back from 0-40 in Game 3 to save serve. It was then that the SDSU tandem finally broke Wilson to take a 6-5 lead. Even in Game 12, the Illini had their chances, when Maiberger double-faulted. San Diego State managed to close out the second set, 7-5, but Ram was starting to "feel it."

What fans were getting just a glimpse of down the stretch in Set 2 became very obvious in the third set. Ram became hotter than a pistol with his returns, and the Aztecs had no answer. He served up a victory in the opening game, then Wilson found the corner for the winner and the first break in Game 2. The junior from San Marcos (just outside San Diego) needed only four serves in Game 3 to give the Illini a 3-0 lead. Redondo and Maiberger threw fuel on the Illinois fire in Game 4 by committing a foot fault and a couple of double-faults from which they would never recover. San Diego did manage to serve for a win in Game 6, but Wilson's serving and Ram's returns finally clinched Illinois' second NCAA Doubles championship (first was by Cary Franklin and Graydon Oliver in 2000) a few moments later.

"I've known Ryan (Redondo) since we were little kids," said Wilson. "He has great hands. Our strategy was to stay away from him at the net and to stay away from Maiberger on the baseline, since those are their strengths."

"I did have a good day," Ram admitted, "especially in the third set. Earlier in the match, some shots started to fall, and my confidence really grew. When it all comes down to it, all of the players are very good when you get to this level. It's just a matter of playing sound, fundamental tennis."

The win for Wilson and Ram constituted the eighth time since 1977 that an unseeded doubles team has won the championship. This was the first time ever in the NCAA Doubles Tournament that a team has beaten the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 seeds on its way to a title.

The doubles victory capped off a long, grueling fortnight in Athens, a very long season, and, in fact, a long decade for the Fighting Illini.

"Our coaches have worked for several years, long and hard, for this moment," said Ram, "and really, we're just part of the result. It didn't happen overnight. A lot of effort was made by the coaches and the players over the past few years at Illinois, for this to happen."

"It doesn't get any better than this," said an elated Tiley. "Never in my wildest dreams did I see us pulling off a sweep like this. Now our players can be talked about along with players like John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Todd Martin and Mal Washington. It's an unbelievable feat to win all three. I think the reason that this is so emotional for me is that I have a special appreciation for this, since I have been involved in this for so long."

After the matches, the Illini players and coaches were treated to a tour of the College Tennis Hall of Fame next door by Georgia coaching legend Dan Magill for which the UGA tennis complex was named.

The all-time leader in collegiate tennis coaching victories showed the three Illini champs where their rackets were going to be displayed in the Hall, and paid the 2003 Fighting Illini an extraordinary compliment. "This may go down as the best team ever (in college tennis)," he said.

ESPN has documented the 2003 NCAA Men's Tennis Championships, and will televise a 90-minute summary of the team, the singles and doubles tournaments tomorrow (Tuesday, May 27) from 1-2:30 p.m. EDT. "It looks like that's just going to be the Illini highlight video," former ESPN commentator Luke Jensen told the team.