Men's Tennis Concludes Competition at the Milwaukee Tennis Classic
9/23/2017 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
ELM GROVE, Wis. - Michigan State men's tennis began its fall schedule at the Milwaukee Tennis Classic this weekend in Elm Grove, Wisconsin. Senior Brett Forman highlighted the Spartan effort with an appearance in the quarterfinals in the men's main draw.
In the men's qualifier draw, seniors Jasper Koenen and Michael Dube represented the Spartans. Koenen fell in his first match against DePaul's Boris Spanjaard (6-2, 6-2), who finished the draw as a qualifier for the main draw. Dube triumphed in his first match versus DePaul's Chris Casati (6-3, 6-1) but fell to Arkansas' Jose Salazar (6-3, 6-2), who also qualified for the main draw. In his final match of the tournament, Dube defeated Robert Krill from Wisconsin 7-6(5), 6-3.
"I think this tournament was awesome. Obviously, coming out here for the first match of the year, our guys are seniors so there's a lot of anticipation and build-up to the matches," Assistant Coach Harry Jadun said. "The first day was kind of rough but we got better each day. Brett got two main draw wins. Jasper and Mike did a great job of competing throughout, getting some extra reps with practice matches as well. We got better, and in the fall that's exactly what we want to do. Now that we know where we're at, we can move forward."
Koenen's back draw match was against Ethan Budiono from IUPUI, ending in a 6-4, 6-3 loss.
Koenen and senior Brett Forman teamed up for the doubles draw, falling in a tight match with Nebraska, 9-8.
Forman appeared in the main draw for the Green and White, claiming victory over Spanjaard, 6-4, 6-3. In the next round, he grinded out a win over Jacob Nicolussi from Old Dominion, 6-7, 6-2, 6-0 to survive and advance to the next day of competition. In the quarterfinals, Forman fell to Felix Corwin of Minnesota, 6-4, 7-5 to conclude competition for the Green and White.
The Koenen, Dube and Forman trio will be back at it again at ITA All-American Championships in Tulsa, Okla. from Sept. 30 to Oct. 8.
"For All-Americans, we just want to build on a lot of things that we learned from each individual match today. Each guy has an idea of what to focus on next week," Jadun said. "We've really got to come out hot and start the first match and the first point rolling, because we found a good level at this tournament but it took us a match or two to get into it, so if we can get into that zone right off the bat at All-American Championships, we'll be good."
