Sept. 21, 2008

Des Moines, Iowa - First-year head coach Pawel Gajdzik and the Northern Illinois men's tennis team finished its season-opening weekend at the 2008 Drake Fall Invitational on Saturday as sophomore Matt Hansen (Topeka, Kan./Miami Online (Fla.)) and junior Javier Bernabe (Segovia, Spain/IES Mariano Quintanilla) each advanced to the quarterfinals in Flight A singles competition.

After winning three doubles matches with freshman teammate Ross VanderPloeg (Holland, Mich./West Ottawa) on Friday to advance to the semifinals, Hansen earned his fourth win of the weekend by beating Creighton's Gabe Nagy, 6-2, 6-2. In his quarterfinal match, Hansen fell to Drake's Maor Zirkin, 6-3, 6-1. In the doubles semifinals, Hansen/VanderPloeg fell to Drake's Ivan Mendoza/Ricardo Lau, 8-3.

Bernabe had to go through two opponents before his quarterfinal match. First, he took down Gustavus Adolphus' John Kauss, 6-2, 6-2. Then he defeated Creighton's Jose Guerra, 7-5, 6-2, before losing to Drake's Mauricio Ballivian, 6-0, 6-2.

Senior Alfonso Monroy (Mexico City, Mexico/Colegio Aleman) won his first match of the year, beating Northern Colorado's Adam Perez, 7-5, 3-6, 7-6. He then dropped his next match to Creighton's James McAvoy, 7-5, 3-6, 7-6 (7). VanderPloeg lost his only match to Mendoza, 7-5, 4-6, 2-6.

The Huskies return to the courts on Friday, October 3 for the Ball State Invitational in Muncie, Ind.