Big Ten singles tourney closes out fall tennis season

The men's tennis team wraps up its fall season this weekend with the Big Ten Singles Championships. The Championships will be held at The University of Minnesota from Nov. 16-18. This is the team's last tournament until they host Murray State on Jan. 16 to kick off its Spring season. \nPlayers competing in the upcoming tournament for the Hoosiers will be freshmen John Stone and Viktor Libal, and sophomores Tom Bagnato, Jakub Praibis, Ryan Recht, and Jullien Vulliez. With two freshmen and four sophomores representing the Hoosiers, the team is young but coach Ken Hydinger said he still has confidence his team can compete with other more veteran Big Ten teams. \n"We have a fairly young team, and this is a high quality tournament," he said. "I just hope the guys can play well and have a breakthrough match that will really give the young players confidence."\nOne of the senior leaders of the team, Zach Held, will not be able to participate in the tournament due to a torn rotator cuff in his shoulder. Although the Hoosier players are young, Stone said the team is not intimidated by the high level of competition. \n"Us young players feel like we have something to prove, the other big ten teams take us lightly because of last year but this is a new year and we are playing with a lot of confidence," Stone said.\nHydinger also said there are many good teams in the Big Ten, one of the best being Illinois. \n"Illinois is a very good team, most likely in the top five in the country," Hydinger said. \nSo far, the Illini have a record of 64-33 in singles play and 27-12 in doubles matches. In the final NCAA Division I rankings last year, Illinois finished the year at fourth. \nThe tournament is being held at The Baseline Tennis Center on Minnesota's campus. Minnesota just finished building the tennis center on Nov. 4, 2002. The new building provides plenty of playing space with 18 total courts, 10 inside and eight outside. Other attractive features of the tennis center are chair-back seating, electronic bleachers, electronic scoreboard, a sound system and a concession stand.\nThe format of the event will be a 64 player singles draw. In addition, for players who lose in the first two rounds there will be a consolation round. For the freshman players, this will be their first opportunity to play in a tournament with this type of format.\n"I am not really nervous, just more excited than anything," Stone said. \nStone added that the team hasn't been preparing any differently for this tournament.\n"We really didn't do that much different stuff, we just practiced a lot and played challenge matches to get into the singles groove," he said. "So hopefully we will be completely ready and play good this weekend." \nRecht offered the same sentiments.\n"Basically we just did a lot of drills earlier in the week to prepare and then played some matches at the end of the week," he said. "…I feel like I am ready, I am more excited than nervous because every match is a big one"