After a long weekend away in Normal, the Bradley tennis team returned to campus with positive building blocks to head into next week. They faced a challenging field, including Illinois State, Valparaiso and Eastern Illinois.
“They competed well; there was some stiff competition,” head coach Matt Tyler said. “I have to give credit to them for that.”
One of the key standouts of the invitational was freshman Anna Belogliadova, who highlighted the Braves’ performance by defeating the Redbirds’ Tijana Zlatanovic in three sets. With the scores being 4-6, 7-5, 10-7, it was an excellent comeback victory against someone Tyler called one of Illinois State’s best players.
“Anna Belogliadova competed great for us,” Tyler said. “She definitely was a standout this past weekend.”
However, things didn’t go as smoothly as the Braves had hoped for. Tyler thinks there were some things that the team definitely could have done better to lead to more positive results.
“[We] have to be more consistent,” Tyler said. “[Also] not giving up simple errors that will cost us going forward. These are things we are already working on in practice this week.”
Tyler mentioned that these would be great lessons come springtime and going forward for the rest of the season. There were key aspects that the Bravesdid well with that Tyler would like to see them keep doing as they move forward.
“They’ve had [a] great work ethic and a great attitude,” Tyler said. “The chemistry has been great. It has been a really fun group to be around.”
Another performance that impressed Tyler was sophomore Kirstin Hailey in both her singles and doubles competition. She battled Valparaiso’s Demi Jhaveri for the singles championship in flight two but ultimately fell short, losing in two close sets 4-6, 5-7.
“Hailey making the championship was great for the team,” Tyler said. “[It] was a great moment and deserved.”
The team returns to play this weekend in Springfield, Missouri from Oct. 7-9 in the MVC Individual Championship.
