Men's Tennis Continues Fall Play Hosting Stan Drobac Invitational

Oct. 8, 2009

EAST LANSING, Mich. -

The men's tennis team will host the inaugural Stan Drobac Invitational this weekend, Friday, October 9, through Sunday, October 11, at the Michigan State Outdoor Tennis Courts. Play begins Friday at 2:30 p.m. and 10 a.m. on both Saturday and Sunday. Teams who will also be competing include; University of Dayton, University of Illinois at Chicago, Green Bay, Cleveland State and IUPUI.

MSU opened fall play by hosting Frank Beeman Invitational. Two of the three singles flights were claimed by the Green and White at the Beeman Invite. Junior Clark Richardson (Leawood, Kansas) claimed Flight C singles while senior Jason Norville (Farmington Hills, Mich.) claimed the title for Flight B. Both finals matches came down to a Spartan versus another Spartan.

The final match in Flight C came down to Richardson and freshman Christian Roehmer (Mt. Pleasant, Mich.), with Richardson edging Roehmer, 6-4, 6-2.

Norville outlasted freshman Will Davis (Louisville, Ky.) in a tough match, 4-6, 7-5, 6-2. Between the main draws and back draws, the Spartans saw 22 singles wins among the team.

Freshman Denis Bogatov (Gurnee, Ill.) advanced to the final match of Flight A singles, before falling to Peotr Necajevs of Detroit Mercy, 6-3, 6-3.

Two Green and White doubles teams advanced to the third round of Flight A doubles. Bogatov and Norville partnered, while sophomore Austin Brooks (Houston, Texas) and junior John Stratton (Monroeville, N.J.) paired together as well. Both teams did exceptionally well, but fell in the final round of play to the tandems of Burus and McCallum of Toledo and Necajevs and Cheung of Detroit Mercy, respectively.

Stan Drobac was the head coach at Michigan State for 32 years, from 1958-1989, and a Spartan athlete from 1949-1953. As a student-athlete, Drobac captured the Big Ten singles title in 1953, after finishing runner-up in 1952. He also earned the Big Ten doubles title in 1952 and 1953. Captain for the 1952 season, Drobac led the Spartans to an unblemished 10-0 record. Before attending MSU, Drobac, along with former MSU men's tennis coach, Frank Beeman, who also preceded Drobac's coaching reign and coached Drobac as a student-athlete, competed in doubles play at Wimbledon.

Throughout his coaching career, Drobac made a substantial impact on the Michigan State tennis program. He led the Spartans to the Big Ten title in 1967 and finished second three times as well as two third-place finishes. Under Drobac, ten individual conference singles titles were claimed by the Spartans, along with four conference doubles titles. He was inducted into the Intercollegiate Tennis Hall of Fame in 1990.

For updated results on this weekend's action, please visit www.msuspartans.com.