Friday, September 21
Princeton, N.J.
All Day
Michigan State University
at
Ivy Plus
Ivan Rakic is one of four Spartans competing this upcoming weekend
Men's Tennis to Open Fall Tournament Schedule
9/20/2018 11:11:00 AM | Men's Tennis
EAST LANSING, Mich. – The Michigan State men's tennis team begins its 2018 fall tournament season on Friday, September 21 at the Western Michigan/Vredevelt Invite and the Ivy-Plus Invitational hosted by Princeton University. Both tournaments will conclude on Monday, September 23.
"It's an opportunity for our guys to get some match play against quality opponents and kind of see where we are as a team, and more importantly as individuals and what we need to do to improve and get better," said MSU head coach Gene Orlando.
Heading into the first weekend of the season Orlando foresees improvement from last year's team. "Just one more year older, more experience, they know what to expect and they know how to go about things. That all brings out leadership. Just a stronger mentality of knowing what they have to do to compete at this level."
Senior's Ivan Rakic and Billy Shisler are headed to Western Michigan, while sophomore's Jack Winkler and Davis Wong will compete at the Ivy-Plus.
Shisler has been hard at work this off-season trying to improve his game. "The big thing I've been working on is ball tolerance, which just means putting the ball in, putting it in with depth and just making sure I can go out there and outwork my opponent every single point," Shisler said.
Rakic is seeded No. 2 in the Flight H round robin tournament alongside Cameron Peterson of Illinois State, Conor Somers of Notre Dame and Sam Sullivan of Butler. Rakic's first match of the day will be against Somers.
Shisler faces-off against Zacharias Rasmusson of Illinois State in the first round of single elimination in Flight G.
"It's the first tournament of the year and I think we're just looking forward to getting out there and competing in a team atmosphere," Shisler said.
Roommates Rakic and Shisler will team up to compete in the doubles bracket against Jack Randall and Kennosuke Nouchi of Western Michigan in round one.
Brackets for the Ivy-Plus have not yet been announced.
Michigan State will be one of 20 teams with competitors in the Ivy-Plus field, alongside Alabama, Brown, Buffalo, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Illinois, LSU, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Penn, Princeton, St. John's, Texas, Tulsa, Wisconsin and Yale.
"It's an opportunity for our guys to get some match play against quality opponents and kind of see where we are as a team, and more importantly as individuals and what we need to do to improve and get better," said MSU head coach Gene Orlando.
Heading into the first weekend of the season Orlando foresees improvement from last year's team. "Just one more year older, more experience, they know what to expect and they know how to go about things. That all brings out leadership. Just a stronger mentality of knowing what they have to do to compete at this level."
Senior's Ivan Rakic and Billy Shisler are headed to Western Michigan, while sophomore's Jack Winkler and Davis Wong will compete at the Ivy-Plus.
Shisler has been hard at work this off-season trying to improve his game. "The big thing I've been working on is ball tolerance, which just means putting the ball in, putting it in with depth and just making sure I can go out there and outwork my opponent every single point," Shisler said.
Rakic is seeded No. 2 in the Flight H round robin tournament alongside Cameron Peterson of Illinois State, Conor Somers of Notre Dame and Sam Sullivan of Butler. Rakic's first match of the day will be against Somers.
Shisler faces-off against Zacharias Rasmusson of Illinois State in the first round of single elimination in Flight G.
"It's the first tournament of the year and I think we're just looking forward to getting out there and competing in a team atmosphere," Shisler said.
Roommates Rakic and Shisler will team up to compete in the doubles bracket against Jack Randall and Kennosuke Nouchi of Western Michigan in round one.
Brackets for the Ivy-Plus have not yet been announced.
Michigan State will be one of 20 teams with competitors in the Ivy-Plus field, alongside Alabama, Brown, Buffalo, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Illinois, LSU, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Penn, Princeton, St. John's, Texas, Tulsa, Wisconsin and Yale.
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