Coming into the Louisville Invitational, Ball State Men’s Tennis freshman Danilo Kovacevic had only won one singles invite. This weekend, he was a singles champion once again.
Kovacevic began the first round of singles play with a win against Belmont’s Grant Kelly (6-3, 6-2). Then, he bested Marc Mila from Tennessee Tech. The Cardinal freshman moved on to the semi-final with a matchup with another freshman from Louisville. In that showdown, Kovacevic won (6-4, 2-6, 6-1). In the singles second bracket championship, he defeated Tennessee Tech’s Gonzalo Garcia. Kovacevic said winning this invitational was different than Purdue.
“This invitational I had more matches under my belt,” Kovacevic said. “I was a little more ready and more comfortable when I played.”
To go along with Kovacevic’s performance, the Cardinals also won a doubles championship. Sophomores Khamasi Muhiga and Alec Robillard won the fourth bracket doubles championship, defeating a pair from Chattanooga, 8-3. Muhiga, who was also the runner-up in the fifth singles bracket, said he expected to win that bracket.
“Alec and I were definitely the best teams in that bracket,” Muhiga said. “There were other definitely solid teams in this flight. We only had to play one match to get to the finals. The other teams weren’t as strong as us.”
Over the weekend, the Cardinals won 23 singles matches and 10 doubles. Head coach Bill Richards said he thought his team played well.
“We put a lot of players out deep into the draw and won a lot of matches,” Richards said. “Coming off a disappointing weekend a week ago, we had a very solid performance this weekend.”
The Cardinals will look to carry this momentum into next weekend’s Black and Gold Invitational in West Lafayette.
Contact Patrick Murphy with comments at prmurphy2@bsu.edu or on Twitter @PMURPH505.
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