It was the place where coach Bill Richards shaped himself into a tennis player and future coach.
More importantly, it was where he won his first collegiate championship at Ball State in 1984 and where he met his future wife, Sue.
In spite all of the history and emotion Richards has for his alma mater, Western Michigan, the Ball State men's tennis team was unable to pick up a win for its coach on Saturday. The Cardinals lost to the Broncos 6-1 and their record fell to 2-2 in the Mid-American Conference.
"I thought Western Michigan played a great match," Richards said. "I didn't think we played poorly. The doubles point was huge. We had a great opportunity to win the doubles point, but we couldn't convert. From there, we had chances in all the singles matches and Western Michigan just came through in crucial situations."
Ball State began the match looking like it may have the momentum in its corner. Freshman Ray Leonard and junior Dalton Albertin won their No. 1 doubles match 9-7 over Nadin Indre and Zeyad Montasser. Western Michigan, however, would win at the No. 2 and No. 3 doubles position and negate any momentum Ball State had.
The momentum continued for the Broncos in singles action. They won five of the six singles matches, two of which came in three sets. Leonard was the lone Cardinal to win as he defeated Pablo Olivarez 6-2, 6-3 in No. 2 singles.
"[Leonard's] a good player," Richards said. "He's got a good head on his shoulders. He's done a great job for a freshman. He played injured today and he toughed it out."
Richards said as Ball State prepares for Buffalo, its final MAC opponent before the conference tournament, working as hard as you can is all you can do.
"You try to take a day or two off to get healthy, and then get back to work and try to finish on a high point going into the tournament," he said.
Ball State's final regular season match against Buffalo will start at 1 p.m. on Saturday at the Cardinal Creek Tennis Center.
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