Nov. 14, 2002
The Illinois men's tennis team will split up this weekend in search of success at two venues. Three of the younger members of the squad will represent the Illini at the Big Ten Singles Tournament at Minneapolis, and the four juniors will be attempting to land spots as amateurs in next week's USTA Challenger professional event, hosted by the University of Illinois and the Northwestern Mutual Financial Network at the Atkins Tennis Center.
Sophomore Chris Martin and freshmen Ryler DeHeart and Pramod Dabir will compete in the Big Ten Singles Tournament, which takes place Saturday through Monday at the University of Minnesota's new Baseline Center. The tourney is a 64-draw affair that features players from every conference school. Opening-round action will take place Saturday morning. The seventh-seeded Martin will take on Michigan State's Eric Simonton at 9 a.m; Dabir opens against the tournament's top seed, Stuart Waters of Iowa at 8 o'clock; and DeHeart, the fourth seed, draws Jose Fischer of Michigan in a contest scheduled for 10:30.
"This is good opportunity for Chris, Ryler and Pramod to represent us," said Tiley. "Ryler has been playing particularly well this fall (10-2 record, second-best winning percentage on the team), and Chris and Pramod certainly have the capability of going a long way in the tournament. This will be great experience for these players. At the same time, we expect each of them to do very well."
The Illini did very well in last year's Big Ten tourney. Michael Calkins won the title, beating teammate Jamal Parker in the final. But Calkins and his classmates will be remaining in Champaign.
Why, then, are Illinois' top four players (the juniors) sitting this one out? "A couple of reasons," says Tiley. There are limits to the number of competitive dates on which our student-athletes are permitted to participate. With our success in the All-American and the National Indoors, several of our players have competed on a lot of days, and we don't want them to miss any more classes than they have to. In addition, the experience of playing against professionals in this weekend's qualifier and potentially next week's Challenger, is invaluable for them."
If Amer Delic, Brian Wilson, Phil Stolt and Michael Calkins compete in the qualifier or the Challenger, it would be as unattached athletes and would not count against their participation dates as members of the Illinois team.
