Sept. 19, 2004

From a win-loss perspective, the Fighting Illini were only moderately successful during their first weekend of competition for 2004-05, but from a coaching standpoint, Sujay Lama was pleased, just the same.

"We have a very young team this year; that's different for us, but it's also exciting," said Lama. "To see these new players so excited about playing for Illinois, soaking up the coaching tips and improving every day, that's gratifying."

Due to NCAA limitations on the number of days a team can hold official practices (or competitions) in an academic year, the Illini had only gone through individual lessons before this tournament.

"It was good to see these players compete for the first time, Lama continued. "They fought hard, but at the same time, we have been able to pinpoint a number of things each player needs to work on. That's what it's all about at this time of year; flexibility of this sort of tournament was ideal for us."

The flexibility to which Lama referred was in the bracketing, or rather lack of it, especially in today's final session. Of Flights A, B and C in singles, only one championship match was contested. Illinois players went 2-3 in the singles matches that were arranged for them today; in doubles, they went 2-1. For the weekend, the Fighting Illini were 13-13 in singles and 7-5 in doubles.

Here's how the Illini fared today:

Singles:
Emily Wang (ILL) def. Noriko Saruta (Western Michigan), 7-5, 6-4
Reedhina Parekh (Western Michigan) def. Anastasia Sokolova (ILL), 3-6, 6-1, 1-0 (6)
Melanie Humphrey (Illinois-Chicago) def. Macall Harkins (ILL), 6-7, 6-4, 1-0 (15)
Momei Qu (ILL) def. Jenny Batty (Ball State), 6-0, 6-1
Carrie Jeanmaire (Western Michigan) def. Brianna Knue (ILL), 6-3, 6-3

Doubles: Cynthya Goulet/Macall Harkins (ILL) def. Rattiya Hiranrat/Malena Remynse (Western Michigan), 9-8 Emily Wang/Momei Qu (ILL) def. Catherina Bestahorn/Victoria Domina (Eastern Michigan), 8-2 Carrie Jeanmaire/Reedhina Parekh (Western Michigan) def. Brianna Knue/Anastasia Sokolova, 8-5

Illinois is idle this coming weekend; its next competition will take place Oct. 1-3 at the Kentucky Fall Invitational in Lexington.