Men's Tennis Suffers Defeat at Illinois State

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. -- The Creighton men's tennis team suffered a setback Sunday afternoon, falling to Illinois State 7-0.

The Bluejays are now 2-7 on the season.

In doubles play, Illinois State came firing out of the gates, blanking the Jays at the No. 1 spot 6-0. The Redbirds proved to be too much to handle as Illinois State took the No. 2 and No. 3 spots by identical scores of 6-3 to take a 1-0 advantage in the overall match.

Illinois State continued on their hot streak into singles play, with a 6-2, 6-3 at the No. 1 spot and a three set 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 victory at No. 2 to clinch the win. Despite taking the last three matches to three sets, the Bluejays fell just short at claiming a victory.

Creighton's Alex Koca was forced to retire his match at No. 3 after losing balance and hitting his head on the court during the first set after only two games.

"Our guys are really competing hard and we are getting in position to win but haven't closed enough singles sets and matches out," head coach Tom Lilly said. "We have played a lot of teams with good records to date so hopefully our guys realize that and it will help us later on."

Creighton will play host to Northern Illinois on Friday, March 2 at the Hanscom Tennis Courts. Doubles action begins at 12 p.m.

Illinois State 7, Creighton 0
Feb 25, 2018 at Bloomington, Ill. (Bloomington Tennis Center)

Singles competition

1. Igor Kolaric (ISU) def. Brooks Kendall (CU) 6-2, 6-3

2. Christoffer Greve (ISU) def. Stratton Brown (CU) 4-6, 6-3, 6-2

3. Andreas Boers (ISU) def. Alex Koca (CU) 1-1, retired

4. Egehan Sertkaya (ISU) def. Armando Gandini (CU) 6-3, 3-6, 6-4

5. Pol Botifoll Rius (ISU) def. Daniel Lopez-Rey (CU) 7-6, 4-6, 1-0 (10-4)

6. Manuel Bernhard (ISU) def. Mac Mease (CU) 6-7, 7-5, 1-0 (10-3)

Doubles competition

1. Christoffer Greve/Igor Kolaric (ISU) def. Alex Koca/Stratton Brown (CU) 6-0

2. Andreas Boers/Pol Botifoll Rius (ISU) def. Mac Mease/Daniel Lopez-Rey (CU) 6-3

3. Egehan Sertkaya/Manuel Bernhard (ISU) def. Armando Gandini/Brooks Kendall (CU) 6-3

Match Notes

Illinois State 8-3

Creighton 2-7

Order of finish: Doubles (1,3,2); Singles (3,1,2,6,4,5)

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Players Mentioned

Stratton Brown

Armando Gandini

Brooks Kendall

Alex Koca

Daniel Lopez-Rey

Mac Mease