It was not an appropriate time or place, but Brian Slack had to laugh. In the midst of losing to Ball State's Matt Baccarani, the IUPUI tennis player thought he had scored on Baccarani by sending it right along the sideline. Baccarani rushed to the sideline and hit the ball across the net diagonally to score and ferment his lead over Slack. Baccarani went on to defeat Slack in two by 6-2, 6-1.
"I felt pretty good about our performance," coach Bill Richards said. "For the most part, we did what we set out to do."
It was much of the same for the rest of the Cardinals this weekend. Ball State had little problem with both IUPUI and Valparaiso, beating both 7-0.
"We knew we were much better than these teams, and had to make sure we had right frame of mind going into these games," Richards said. "We didn't want to overlook these teams. We respect every team we play."
The Cardinals' single play was exceptional. Only IUPUI's Luke Recker was able to win a set against the Cardinals this weekend, and the team's single-sets record is now 24-1.
The Cardinals also went 6-0 in doubles play. Richards feels that doubles will be very important in the next few weeks.
"We are approaching a real tough stretch in our schedule," Richards said. "We need for doubles to be a strong point."
Bill Richards also rotated his players around between matches. All eight members of the Cardinals played this weekend, in varying time.
The No. 63 Cardinals take a 2-0 mark to Champaign, Ill., next weekend to face Illinois. The Illini are defending national champs and ranked first in the country.
"From where we were this past weekend we're going to a whole `nother level -- nowhere close to where we were last weekend," Richards said. "We are approaching it from more of an individual level, we ask everyone play as well as they can."
The Illini have four nationally ranked players on their roster, including Michael Calkins and Chris Martin who won the regional doubles title this fall. Despite this, Richards remains optimistic.
"They're the premiere team in the country and we're excited to see how we match up with them," Richards said. "I was talking to (men's basketball coach) Tim Buckley, and I told him 'We're playing the No. 1 team this weekend, and at least they can't score 100 points on us.'"
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