After losing to Illinois 7-0 each of the past five seasons, the Ball State men's tennis team will travel to Champaign, Ill. for the fifth consecutive year Friday in hopes of ending its scoring drought.
Despite its lack of success against Illinois in recent years, coach Bill Richards said that's not on the team's mind.
"We don't think about Illinois," he said. " We just think about ourselves and what we have to do to get better."
One area Ball State will need to get better at is its singles play. During last week's road match against Northwestern, four of Ball State's six singles players lost in straight sets. Two of them lost their opening set 6-0.
With Illinois players like Dennis Nevolo, No. 2 ranked player in the country, and Roy Kalmanovich, No.24 ranked player in the country, Ball State may continue to have its problems in singles action.
Junior Dalton Albertin, however, said if Ball State can serve well, it has a shot at beating its No. 17th ranked foe.
"That's definitely the biggest shot in men's tennis," he said. "All of the guys on their team are really good, but you can visualize some of their abilities if you're serving well. If there's one key shot that everybody can hope to have a good day on, it would definitely be the serve."
In addition to good serving, Albertin said the team needs to "go out with a good mindset and try to put themselves in the best possible situation to win."
"You never know what's going to happen when the score gets close," he said. "So as long as we can keep the matches tight and give ourselves a chance, anything can happen. Really, that's all we can hope for. Illinois is a very good team, but I think we're a very good team as well."
First serve for the match is at 7 p.m.
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