Sept. 28, 2003

Pramod Dabir concluded his weekend at the Charles Fluitt Invitational today at the University of Kentucky with a win. He defeated Angel Diankov from Virginia Tech 7-5, 7-6 (2). After losing his first match on Friday to another Hokie, Soren Spanner, Dabir went on to win his final three matches in the tournament to go 3-1 on the weekend.

"Overall I think he (Dabir) had a pretty solid match today," said Associate Head Coach Bruce Berque. "I think that he would agree with me that he could have won the match more decisively. But he did play more aggressively today, which I wanted him to do. He returned his serves much better today and improved on them the whole weekend."

"Coming out of the tournament I think he needs to work on his volleys, so he can have the ability to play them at the aggressiveness level that he wants," continued Berque. "Overall I think he had a pretty good weekend."

Dabir and classmate Ryler DeHeart were Illinois' only two entries into the tournament at Kentucky. DeHeart bowed out yesterday. The two sophomores return to campus to join the rest of the team in preparation for the ITA All-American Tournament, for which pre-qualifying begins Friday, Oct. 3 in Chattanooga, Tenn.