APSU Sports: Austin Peay Men’s Tennis
Clarksville, TN – In gaining a No. 2 seed for the second straight year, Austin Peay State University men’s tennis team begins its Ohio Valley Conference Championship bid, 10:00am, when it faces No. 3 seed Eastern Kentucky at Nashville’s Centennial Park.
“It’s pretty impressive what these guys have been able to do,” head coach Malik Tabet said. “They put in a lot of work and spend a lot of time studying the game, trying to get better. Getting the first-round bye is huge for us, but not our ultimate goal.”
Saturday will be a rematch of the 2011 OVC Championship finals, only this time the Govs boast the league’s Player of the Year in junior Sean Bailey where it was EKU with Alex Das a year ago. Bailey is one of four Govs named All-OVC with sophomore Jasmin Ademovic sharing first-team honors. A pair of freshmen – Dimitar Ristovski and Aleksas Tverijonas – were named to the second team.
When the Govs and Colonels last played, April 14th, Austin Peay won 4-3 and the match may have decided the race for Player of the Year. Both Bailey and EKU’s Hugo Klientovsky entered undefeated, but Bailey won the No. 1 singles match in straight sets.
Austin Peay would get wins from Ademovic at No. 2, Ristovski at No. 3 and Tverijonas at No. 4. The Colonels, however, won two of three doubles matches to take that point.
Eastern Kentucky defeated Murray State, 4-0, Friday. Klientovsky is the Colonels only first-team All-OVC pick, while fellow seniors Niklas Schroeder and Parul Verma were each named second team.
