The Chicago State University men's tennis team opened its 2012 campaign by facing south side rivals, the University of Chicago, on Feb. 2 at Bally's in Hyde Park. Playing under NCAA Division III rules, the Cougars fell to the Maroons, 9-0, but third-year head coach Jack Barton is very optmistic about the future of his team which consists of five freshmen and a junior.
"They played very well in the match, but the stigma of being freshmen showed,” Coach Barton stated. “The great thing about these guys is that they are not scared or intimidated, and they are hungry to learn and get better and that makes the difference."
The Cougars had a good showing by freshman Julian Chavez (Bogota, Colombia/) (Bogata, Columbia) in both singles and doubles. At No. 2 doubles, he and freshman Sergiu Muresan (Roman, Romania/) (Roman, Romania) battled very hard, but came up short losing 8-6 to the Chicago tandem of Ankhur Bhargava and Deepak Sabada. Chavez also played a hard-fought singles match at No. 3 against Alexander Golovin, losing 7-5, 6-4.
"Julian was fighting cramps in the second set and he actually played better. He got that out of his mind and focused on shortening the point and it was working for him," said Barton. "University of Chicago is one of the top NCAA Division III teams in the nation. They will beat most Division I schools, and for our young team to fight like they did makes me proud but me and the team are not satisfied. We all talked after the match and each person knows what they need to work on so we will learn and go back to the dungeon and work on it."
This weekend, the Cougars continue by taking on Drake on Saturday and Creighton on Sunday. Both matches will be played at Drake in Des Moines, Iowa.
