Oct. 1, 1999

In the first day of play in the Nike Fall Invitational, the first tournament of the fall season, the Fighting Illini Men's Tennis team won big, but lost big as well. While the Illini managed to topple South Florida 8-1, and take two of three points away from Miami in doubles play, the Illini will be without senior all-American Cary Franklin (Atlanta, GA/St. Pius X) for at least two weeks.

"The good thing is that nothing is broken," said Head Coach Craig Tiley. "It's just a twisted ankle, but he'll be out for about two weeks."

Although Franklin will be cheering from the sidelines, his absence gave several younger players the chance to step up and fill the necessary roles.

"Our guys did a good job out here today," Tiley said. "The younger guys played well and are a bit more experienced this year. They realize they are the future of this program and they proved that today."

In doubles play, the sophomore duo of Jamal Parker (Denville, NJ/Newark Academy) and Nathan Zeder (Miami, Fla./Palmer Trinity) had a sparkling debut, defeating the South Florida duo of Steve Capriati and Boris Babic 8-6, while against Miami, proved their mettle by coming from behind to defeat the duo of Jose Lieberman and Joel Berman, 8-6. In singles play, both were as successful as Zeder dropped the first set to South Florida's Aleks Popovic, 0-6, but regrouped and won the next two sets, 6-3, 6-4. Parker lost the first set to the Bull's Boris Babic 2-6, but managed to win the second set, 6-3, and had a 4-2 lead in the third set before Babic retired.

In addition to Parker and Zeder, fellow soph Mike Kosta went undefeated on the day, making quick work of the Bull's Jit Shah, 6-3, 6-4, while teaming with junior Ben Schreiber (Lakeside Park, Ky./Covington Catholic) to defeat Shah and Evan Pinther, 8-4. In doubles play against Miami, Kosta joined junior transfer Graydon Oliver (Weston, Fla./Alabama) to fill the vacancy left by Oliver's original partner, Franklin, to defeat the duo of Jamin Thompson and Arpad Odry, 8-4. Oliver, making his first appearance as an Illini, paired with Franklin to defeat S. Florida's Fabio Tintori and Aleks Popovic, 8-1, while making quick work of Steve Capriati in singles play, winning 6-2, 6-1.

The Illini will be back on the court tomorrow at 8:30 A.M. in singles action against Miami, and will be competing in a round robin format through Sunday. The Nike Fall Invitational runs from October 1 through October 3, and is held at the Atkins Tennis Center at the University of Illinois-Champaign/Urbana.