McLean County Times

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — The Illinois State men's tennis team achieved a 5-2 victory over Northern Illinois University on Saturday at the Evergreen Racquet Club. This win brings Illinois State's record to 3-3, while NIU stands at 3-2.

Illinois State will now embark on a series of three away matches in February. Their first stop is Indianapolis, Indiana, where they will face IU Indy on February 7. Subsequently, they will travel to Oklahoma for a doubleheader against New Mexico State and Tulsa University on February 9.

Head coach Mark Klysner expressed satisfaction with his team's performance against NIU. "What a gritty win this was tonight. We honestly played some of the worst doubles this year and that comes with a lack of experience (new pairings) so it's to be expected, something we'll need to figure out soon," Klysner stated.

He added, "Credit to the guys for digging deep in the singles and fighting through a highly contested match. For me personally, it was such a nice win as it was the first in 13 tries we've come up on top."

In doubles play, NIU swept all three matches against ISU pairs: Arrastia/Scotuzzi defeated Scarlett/Valencia 6-2; Berdullas/Klein overcame Bevan/Dibildox 7-5; and Nan/Velasco bested Capacci/Ostro by the same score.

However, ISU bounced back in singles matches with five wins: Tomas Valencia defeated Arrastia 1-6, 6-3, 6-4; Adrian Dibildox beat Berdullas 7-5, 6-3; Tin Ostro won against Nan with scores of 7-6 (6), 6-3; Christian Capacci overcame Velasco decisively at 6-2, 6-2; and Caden Scarlett triumphed over Pratayaksh with scores of 6-3, 7-6 (2). Jett Leong was defeated by Scotuzzi from NIU with scores of 3-6, 1-6.

For further updates on Illinois State men's tennis activities and results, visit GoRedbirds.com or follow their social media accounts on "X" under RedbirdMTEN and Instagram at redbirdmtennis.