Men’s tennis heads to Indiana for two matches

By Scott Sierzenga
Western Herald

The state of Indiana will play host to the men’s tennis team’s first weekend road trip of the season.
Western Michigan University will play Butler University in Indianapolis on Friday, then drive north to West Lafayette and face Purdue University on Saturday.

The Broncos come off the weekend split and into the upcoming matches far from unscathed. Two players on its seven-man roster were hurt in last week’s 6-1 loss to No. 16 University of Michigan, leading the Broncos to play Xavier University on Jan. 25 shorthanded. WMU was forced to forfeit two matches: one in singles and one in doubles.

“Never before did that happen in my career,” head coach Dave Morin said. “It put the guys on edge, there wasn’t much room for error.”

Sophomore Kazuya Komada and freshman Pablo Olivarez are the ailed Broncos. Olivarez injured his ankle, however X-rays were negative. On the other hand, Komada has a MCL sprain and has not yet gone for X-rays.
Both players could possibly see limited action this weekend, Morin said.

A limited-action scenario could mean that one player may play in one singles match one day then rest the next, but all decisions are still up in the air.

Sophomore Casey Cullen is coming off a big weekend, winning the last match against Xavier’s Bobby Deye 6-4, 7-5 in singles to give the Broncos the victory.

“Casey winning the last match was huge for his confidence and the team’s,” Morin said.

Sophomore Michael Calderone is also coming off a strong weekend, beating Michigan’s Mike Sroczynski 6-4, 7-6 (7-3) at No. 2, giving Western Michigan its only win in singles against U-M. Calderone will take a four-game singles winning streak into this weekend.

The Broncos kick off the weekend trip playing against a Butler team that has yet to win a singles match in the winter season, making them 0-12 on the year. The Bulldogs have not been much better in doubles this season, starting off with a 1-5 record.

Saturday, the Brown and Gold will make another trip in Indiana to face the Boilermakers of Purdue.
Despite the first weekend trip of the season, Morin is not concerned with his team’s play.
“[The trip] won’t affect the team at all,” he said.

Purdue will be playing its second match of the season on Saturday. Its last match was played on Jan. 18, and have not played a match since. The Boilermakers lost its first match of the season to DePaul University, 4-3. The Broncos won’t count Purdue out, though. In Purdue’s first match, they won all three of its doubles matches and will look to carry that into Saturday.

The Boilermakers are led by junior Slavko Bijelica in No. 1 singles. Bijelica won his first match of the season 7-6, 3-6, 6-3 and posted a 10-15 record in the 2007-08 season with Purdue.

WMU remains optimistic about the injuries of its players and whether or not they will be able to play. However, WMU realizes the need to play within themselves.

“We need to continue to focus on things we do well and what we can control,” Morin said.

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Posted by HeraldAdmin on Jan 29 2009. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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