During the weekend of September 17-18, both the women’s and men’s tennis teams competed in the KCAC Fall Individual Championships.
Coming out of the tournament, the men’s side came out with the number two singles first place title won by Milan Bucek, sophomore from Pelhrimov, Czech Republic, the number four singles second place medal won by Tomas Quercia, sophomore from Buenos Aires, Argentina, the number five singles third place medal won by Joaquin Pluis, sophomore form Buenos Aires, Argentina, as well as the number one doubles first place title won by Michael Cech, sophomore from Modlany, Czech Republic, and Bucek.
On top of the men’s high performances, the women’s team also had four out of six of their girls compete in semi-final matches, all four of the girls being freshmen.
“I felt a lot of pressure going into this tournament, because I had won it last year, and I knew I was supposed to win the tournament. I had a bad first set in the championship match but came back in the third set to win it,” Bucek said.
Bucek is a sophomore from the Czech Republic and won the number two singles championship.
“I always expect myself to win, no matter who my opponent is. I desired to win the tournament again, and after each match I was getting closer to the finals, match points and eventually winning the whole tournament,” Bucek said.
Another important factor in the KCAC weekend is doubles.
“It felt amazing to win the championship with Milan. We competed on the highest level in each match and overcame some hard situations but we still made it! In the final we played the number one team from McPherson which made the win taste even sweeter,” Cech said.
Cech and Bucek came out of the weekend winning the KCAC number one doubles title.
“Michael and I had only played twice together before as a doubles team but from the beginning we knew we were a good couple. I think it is because we are both from the Czech Republic and communicating to each other is much easier because of that,” Bucek said.
This specific tournament was broken up into six different brackets for singles and three different brackets for doubles. These brackets are based off of the lineup spots, ranging from #1 singles to #6 singles and number one doubles to number three doubles.
Quercia played at the number four spot and also took a trip to the championship match.
“I was so nervous at the beginning of the final. I started down 0-5, and coach told me to give my opponent pressure to close the set. The first set ended up 3-6. I knew I had to start the second set strong. I was playing my best tennis and put myself up 4-1. Then I was nervous to close the set and I ended up losing the second set 6-7 with a lot of disappointment in myself because of the chances I didn’t take advantage of,” Quercia said.
One other Thresher made it to a third place match to end the day well and that was Pluis.
“[During my third place match] I was thinking about going point by point and letting the result be a consequence of doing what I had to do. I was just trying to analyze my opponent’s game to find the best strategy to win, and I came out on top,” Pluis siad.
