Oct. 20, 2004
Champaign, Ill. -
In the past two seasons at the ITA Midwest Regional Championship, Illinois has owned six of the eight semifinalists, one singles champion and a doubles championship. Led by 7-1 Ryler DeHeart, the Orange and Blue will look to continue on past success at the event this weekend in Ann Arbor, Mich.
"We've traditional done well in this tournament," said head coach Craig Tiley. "We are going in with the expectation that our players are going to show improvement from our training the past five weeks. Hopefully we will be in a situation where we can gain more information on things we have to work as we get ready for the season in January."
The Fighting Illini will enter the weekend with plenty of experience. DeHeart has been a quarterfinalist the past two years. Chris Martin, ranked 50th and No. 68 Pramod Dabir advanced to the semifinals a year ago. Martin was also last year's doubles champion with current student-assistant Michael Calkins.
Entering the weekend, the Orange and Blue have had exceptional play out of its underclassman. Lead by 111th ranked sophomore GD Jones, who is 6-3, including five wins against ranked opponents, has shown the young Illini freshmen the key to success. Freshmen Andrew Eklov, Brandon Davis and Monte Tucker all have above .550 records.
Eklov (4-3), went 4-1 two weeks ago at the Louisville Invitational to advance to the final. Tucker is 3-1 and has already gotten national recognition as he is ranked 121st. Davis is 3-1 and is a perfect 3-0 in three set matches.
Eklov and Davis will begin play on Thursday in the qualifying rounds of the Midwest Regional. Eklov received the fifth seed in the qualifying rounds and will square off against Michigan State's Brian Compton, while Davis, the 13th seed, will meet Josef Fischer of Michigan.
Eight qualifiers will join the main draw, which is slated to begin on Saturday. If Davis and Eklov are able to win three consecutive qualifying matches they will join Martin, Dabir, DeHeart, Jones, Tucker and Evan Zeder in the main draw.
