Men's tennis has subpar weekend

The men's tennis team struggled this weekend at the Region IV Championships in East Lansing, Mich. Hoosier coach Ken Hydinger thought it was a subpar performance. \n"This was not a good tournament for us," Hydinger said. "We have some things we really need to work on. We should be winning more matches at a tournament like this. We have to get to work." \nSenior Milan Rakvica had a successful performance. After a first round bye, the No. 8 seed defeated sophomore Brian Farrell of Notre Dame, 7-5, 6-3. He then defeated sophomore Josh Axler of Northwestern, 6-4, 6-3 before falling to No. 10 seed sophomore Jeremy Wurtzman of Ohio St., 6-2, 6-1 in the round of 16. With the loss, Rakvica is now 6-3 this fall in singles. \nIn other singles action, senior Rahman Smiley defeated Bertrand Liger of Chicago State, 6-1, 6-2, before falling to 12th-seeded Henry Beam of Minnesota, 7-6(4), 7-6(1). Smiley is now 4-3 in the fall of 2001.\n"We want Rahman to break through to a new level this season," Hydinger said. "The match was on Rahman's racquet, he just didn't get the job done. He had some bad service games and it ended up costing him in the end."\nElsewhere in singles, senior Ari Widlansky drew a first round bye before losing to junior Ryan Maarschalk of Western Michigan, 6-2, 6-3. With the loss, Widlansky falls to an even 3-3 this fall. \nJunior Zach Held was eliminated by No. 18 seeded senior Mike Kosta of Illinois, 6-3, 6-4, after getting past Ohio State sophomore Ben Kirksey in the first round, 6-3, 6-4. Rounding out the singles competition for the Hoosiers, freshman Tom Bagnato lost a 6-2, 6-2 decision to freshman Tom Hanus of Northwestern in first round action.\nThe doubles team of Smiley and freshman Ryan Recht lost a hard fought second round match to junior Manual Leivano and freshman Avery Ticer of Minnesota, 9-8(2) after a first round bye. \nIn other doubles action, the freshman tandem of Bagnato and Jon Magnes defeated Minnesota\'s Eric Robertson, a junior, and sophomore Chris Wettengel, 8-4 before losing to No. 3 seed seniors Casey Smith and Javier Taborga of Notre Dame, 8-1.\nIU will conclude fall play when they travel back to East Lansing, Mich. for the Big Ten Singles Championships Nov. 10-12.