Men's Tennis to Open Fall Season at Western Michigan
9/24/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
EAST LANSING, Mich. -
Michigan State men's tennis will open its fall season at the Vredevelt Invitational at Western Michigan University Friday, Sept. 25 -- Saturday, Sept. 26.
Michigan State head coach Gene Orlando said that he has seen improvement in all his players, even though his team's first day of practice was on Tuesday of this week.
"Just with where they were the first day of practice and how they improved as we went along, I'm excited as each guy continues to make that improvement day in and day out for the next eight weeks," Orlando said. "We want to be playing our best at the end of the fall and then carry that into the winter and spring seasons."
With scattered balls strewn all over after working on serving, assistant coach Damian Hume shouted out "one minute." Hustling with the threat of sprints should they fail, the team finished clearing the court with three seconds to spare.
They progress to drills as the incoming three freshmen mesh well, challenging their upper classmen opponents.
All this hard work is in preparation for the Spartans' first invitational of the fall season.
Orlando said that this tournament is a "great opportunity to see the guys compete."
"Really we're just trying to get more matches played for each of the guys," Orlando said. "We're looking to test their game and see what they're doing well and look for areas that they need to improve -- things that they might need to tighten up before the spring season comes."
Orlando will have six of his Spartans competing during the weekend. For doubles teams he paired sophomore Jasper Koenen with freshman Colin Harvey and freshmen Ivan Rakic and Billy Shisler. Veteran doubles pair junior Mac Roy and sophomore Michael Dube enter the season ranked 37th in the nation.
Harvey said that he hopes to bring his net game and finesse in his new partnership with Koenen.
"Jasper [Koenen] has unbelievable returns," Harvey said. "He's very strong and a very good player. For me, since he has the return game, obviously breaking our opponents will hopefully be a little bit easier. In turn, what I want to bring is my serving game to counter that so that we can be winning both sides of the match."
Draws for Friday, Sept. 25:
Doubles
Mac Roy/Michael Dube v. Howard Scott/Miles McDowall (UWGB)
Jasper Koenen/Colin Harvey v. Maik Steiner/Mattew Hamilton (WMU)
Billy Shisler/Ivan Rakic v. Kevin Goth/Andre Mick (Cleveland State)
Singles:
Mac Roy v. Maik Steiner (WMU)
Jasper Koenen v. Howard Scott (UWGB)
Michael Dube v. Andreas Boers (Illinois State)
Billy Shisler v. Andrew Cahn (WMU)
Ivan Rakic v. Dylan Steffens (Illinois State)
Colin Harvey v. Matej Kostadinov (UWGB)
Players Mentioned
