CHICAGO (Jan. 27, 2023) – The UIC men's tennis program will be competing in front of the home crowd for the first time in 2024, as the Flames host North Dakota Sunday at the XS Tennis Village.
 
Sunday's contest will start at 9 a.m. and is the first of UIC's ten home matches in 2024.
 
SCOUTING NORTH DAKOTA

• The Fighting Hawks are 0-3 on the season with losses at Creighton (5-2) and Nebraska (7-0) and NIU (6-1). UND faces UChicago Saturday afternoon in its fourth match of the season.
• Three members of North Dakota's squad (Jayho Hong, Ange-Kevin Koua and Christos Alex) have won singles matches this season.
• This will be the third time the two programs have met since 2020. UIC fell to North Dakota in both previous matches.
• Sunday's contest against the Flames is the Fighting Hawks' final match of a season-opening five match road trip.

FIRST WEEK OF THE SEASON RECAP

• The Flames opened the 2024 season in the Bluegrass State, with road losses to Eastern Kentucky (6-1) and Bellarmine (4-3).
• UIC had an especially strong showing against the Knights, winning the doubles point, along with singles wins by Aleksa Bucan (Belgrade, Serbia/Arkansas) and Edoardo Bottino (Genoa, Italy/Queens University).
• Competing at the No. 1 singles slot, senior Randy Wilson (Miami, Fla./Florida Gulf Coast) had a solid opening weekend, defeating Eastern Kentucky's Mario Monclus Martin for his first win at UIC.

MEET THE FLAMES

• UIC will have eight student-athletes competing on the 2024 squad.
• Returning from UIC's 2023 team are reigning Southland Conference Newcomer of the Year Aleksa Bucan, Elliott Dam (Naperville, Ill./Waubonsie Valley), Artem Iermolov (Las Vegas, Nev./Clark) and Gustavo Schwebel (Salvador, Brazil/Colegio Antonio Vieira).
• New to the Flames this season are transfers Edoardo Bottino, Randy Wilson and Robinson Le Meur (Evreaux, France/Sciences Po Bordeaux) and freshman Mihailo Savic (Smederevska Palanka, Serbia/Sportska Gimnazija).

YEAR TWO FOR COACH PARLIC

• The 2024 season marks UIC's second season under head coach Jovan Parlic.
• In his first season leading the Flames, Coach Parlic led UIC to the No. 2 seed and a 3-2 record in Southland Conference play. Under his tutelage, the conference named Aleksa Bucan its Newcomer of the Year and a member of its All-Conference First Team.
• Parlic arrived in Chicago after serving as an assistant coach at Arkansas and Colorado.
• He competed collegiately at Arkansas from 2011-15.

NEW YEAR, NEW CONFERENCE

• The Flames will be joining the Mid-American Conference as an affiliate member starting this season.
• UIC will be one of six MAC programs competing in men's tennis, along with Ball State, Buffalo, Northern Illinois, Toledo and Western Michigan.
• Four of the other five programs in the MAC are less than a four-hour drive from Chicago.
• The Flames join Northern Illinois as the second program from the Prairie State to compete in men's tennis in the MAC.
• UIC competed as an affiliate member in the Southland Conference during the 2022-23 season.

FOLLOW THE FLAMES

•  For more information on the UIC men's tennis program, fans are encouraged to visit UICFlames.com, or follow the Flames on social media through X (@UIC_MTEN and @UICFlames) and Instagram (@uic_mten and @uicflames).