Sept. 26, 2003

Two sophomores representing the Illinois men's tennis team competed in first-day action at the Charles Fluitt Invitational, hosted by the University of Kentucky, today, and the Orange and Blue came away with one win and one loss against two opponents from Virginia Tech. Both Ryler DeHeart and Pramod Dabir had first-round byes in the Flight "A" main draw, but DeHeart won his second-round contest, while Dabir lost his match.

DeHeart, ranked No. 44, defeated Angel Diankov, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3, to move into tomorrow morning's quarterfinal round match against Tigran Martirosyan of Kentucky, while Dabir saw his 24-match singles winning streak (dating back to last season) stopped by Soren Spanner, 7-6 (3), 6-4. Dabir will face Derek Boland of Evansville tomorrow afternoon in a consolation bracket match.

"Ryler didn't play particularly well, especially at first," said UI Associate Head Coach Bruce Berque. "He was able to hang in there and eventually finish off his opponent. He was playing fairly well at the end. Hopefully this will be a good start for him this weekend.

"Pramod, on the other hand, was definitely off his game today. He definitely had plenty of chances to win. He was up a break in the first set, and he played better at the end, but didn't execute early. It's a match he would win nine out of 10 times. It's disappointing, but it's hard to fault him too much after having won his last 24 matches in a row."

The three-flight singles tournament, featuring athletes from Bellarmine, Eastern Kentucky, Evansville, Illinois, Kentucky, Morehead State, Southern Illinois, Virginia Tech and Wright State, continues through Sunday on the University of Kentucky campus. For full results, consult the UK athletic website at http://ukathletics.ocsn.com/sports/m-tennis/kty-m-tennis-body.html.