Men's Tennis Team Kicks Off Spring Season Tomorrow
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Jan. 24, 2002
CARBONDALE, Ill. - The Saluki men's tennis team opens its spring season at the Missouri Valley Individual Championships Friday January 25 in Des Moines, IA. The tournament is an unscored event with all 10 conference teams participating.
"It gives me an opportunity to see how we do initially against these conference teams, we have a team with a lot of potential. They can improve tremendously in the next 3 months before the conference championships. This match is kind of the starting point of the season," commented Missy Jeffrey, head coach of the men's team.
The tournament will include singles and doubles competition. The Salukis will only take 6 players, which will give all the players a chance to get some action in both singles and doubles play.
" The singles lineup is Peter Bong at 1, Alon Savidor at 2, Richard Booth at 3, Julian Angel Botero at 4, Lukasz Soswa at 5 and Brian Blake at 6. The doubles lineups, for the tournament we have Botero and Bong together and I'm playing Booth and Savidor together, as well as Soswa and Blake at #3. But all the teams are even and we will probably switch the positions this season, when we see who is more successful this season," said Jeffrey.
This will be the only tournament the Salukis will participate in this spring except for the conference tournament.
"I just want the guys to out and play, they had a good fall. Everyone in the top 5 won at least one title. Savidor, Richard and Botero won about 75% of their matches. Luskasz went 10-1 in doubles. We have some good wins against players from nationally ranked teams. We have a young team. We have a great deal of ability to surprise some teams in this tournament," said Jeffrey