PEORIA, Ill. – The Western Illinois Men's Tennis team dropped a close match to Bradley by a 4-3 final on Wednesday, March 23 at the Clubs at River City.
The Fighting Leathernecks (4-11) picked up wins in two singles matches and took two of three doubles matches from the Braves (12-5) to earn the doubles point.
"Bradley, a very strong team, came roaring out in singles by taking leads
in five of the six matches," said head coach Chris Kane. "Patrick Hammers played a great match at No. 3, making very few errors and showing great athletic ability in
running down his opponent's big shots.
"Jeff Cote was down a set and 6-5, 40-0, with his opponent serving for
the match and having three match points. He played three great points
to shake off the match points, broke serve, and won the second set
tiebreaker to even the match. He then played an excellent third set
tiebreaker to win the third set 10-6 and take the match; it was a
great effort by Jeff."
Cote was victorious in three sets at the No. 1 singles position. Cote battled back from a first set loss to pick up a hard-fought win (4-6, 7-6, 10-6) over Hamish Weerasinghe.
Hammers won his match at the No. 3 singles spot in straight sets (7-6, 6-2) to give the Leathernecks two wins in the top three positions.
In other singles action, Mandela Shepard fell in straight sets (6-2, 6-2) at No. 2 while Alejandro Buceta dropped his match at the No. 4 spot (6-0, 6-3). Francisco Ortiz lost a tight battle at No. 5 (6-4, 6-3) while Jim Capalbo fell at No. 6 (6-1, 6-2).
The Leathernecks performed well in doubles action as the teams of Cote/Buceta and Hammers/Ben Yue won at the No. 2 and 3 spots, respectively. Cote/Buceta won 9-8 (8-5) while Hammers/Yue won 8-4. Western's top doubles team of Ortiz/Shepard fell by a score of 8-5.
"We started out playing some excellent doubles," said Kane. "Hammers and Yue
missed only a couple of service returns each the whole match, and that's
a formula for winning. The doubles point was up for
grabs and it came down to No. 2 doubles. Jeff and Alex were
seemingly cruising to victory with a 7-3 lead and then shook off the shock of losing five
games in a row to win."
Western Illinois returns to action this weekend when they play host to IPFW, Centenary and South Dakota State. The Leathernecks pen Summit League play with IPFW at 3:30 p.m. on Friday.
The match against Centenary begins at 2 p.m. on Saturday while Sunday's match against SDSU is slated for a 9 a.m. start. The matches are scheduled to be played on the Brophy Courts but may be moved indoors to Galesburg in case of inclement weather.
