Men's Tennis | October 24
ANN ARBOR, Mich. – The Northern Illinois University men's tennis team competed at the ITA Midwest Regional Championships hosted by the University of Michigan over the weekend. The event started Thursday, October 24 as eight Huskies competed in the singles competition and four duos competed for the Huskies in the doubles event.
Christopher Norlin (Stockholm, Sweden) and
Iker Gaztambide Arrastia (Pamplona, Spain) both won all three of their qualifying matches and advanced to the singles main draw, where they joined automatic qualifiers
Cheng En Tsai (Taipei, Taiwan) and
Mikael Vollbach (Rothis, Austria).
Norlin won his first match, 6-2, 6-4 over Charalampos Fouzas of Youngstown State and then defeated 15
th seeded Evan Lee of Notre Dame in the second round 6-3, 6-2. Norlin then won his third-round qualifying matchup over Toledo's Cole Cozens 6-2, 6-2, to reach the main draw.
Gaztambide Arrastia won his first match 6-1, 7-5 over WMU's Ashton Adesoro. He then defeated DePaul's Shourya Verma, 6-3, 6-0. In the third round, he took out Matias Olivero of Toledo in a competitive match. He dropped the first set, 7-6, and then won set two, 7-6, and won the tiebreaker 10-8, to advance to the main draw.
In the main draw, Norlin eliminated Jason Hildebrant of Wisconsin 6-2, 6-2, in the Round of 64, before seeing his run come to an end against ninth-seeded Robert Cash of Ohio State, 6-0, 6-0, in the Round of 32.
Gaztambide Arrastia was knocked out by the fifth overall seed in the main draw Jack Anthrop from Ohio State, 6-1, 6-1, in the Round of 64. Also in the Round of 64, Tsai fell to 12
th-seeded Jacob Bickersteth of Michigan, 3-6, 6-4, 6-2, while Vollbach was topped by Western Michigan's Benjamin George, 6-1, 6-1
In the doubles, Vollbach and Tsai captured an 8-3 win over William Rassat and Asier Pena Ibanez of Youngstown State in the opening round. The Huskie duo then topped UIC's Gustavo Schwebel and Edoardo Bottino in the Round of 32. The NIU tandem saw its run come to an end in the Round of 16 against the seventh-ranked pair from Wisconsin, Gabriel Huber and Oliver Olsson.
The Huskies are back in action in November on Friday, November 3 through Sunday, November 5 at the MAC Indoor Championships in Kalamazoo, Mich.
- NIU -
