Having two meets in a weekend isn’t always a good thing but this weekend sophomore Vuk Milicevic thought it worked to his advantage.

Milicevic said that after the meet on Saturday the team was able to pinpoint any areas that may have needed work and come out even stronger on Sunday.

On Saturday the men beat Chicago State 4-3, winning two doubles matches and the No. 1, No. 3 and No. 5 singles.

Eastern Freshman Jeff Rutherford closed out the match with a heavily contested win over Chicago State’s Toni Tudoric.

Rutherford lost the first set in the No. 5 singles 4-6, then won the next two 6-3 and 6-1.

“It was tough; he was a heavy hitter and I had to hit a lot of balls back and be aggressive,” Rutherford said. “I did that and the second and third sets turned out pretty successful.”

Then on Sunday the men defeated Valparaiso 6-1, winning all the doubles matches and five of the six singles matches.

Head coach John Blackburn said that the doubles matches were tightly contested at Valpo, and winning all three, along with the win over Chicago, gave them a boost of confidence going into their singles matches.

The women’s tennis team closed out the weekend with a 5-2 win over Valparaiso that Blackburn said was the best win he has seen from the Eastern women in two years.

Valparaiso was last year’s women’s Mid-Continent conference champions and Blackburn said he was expecting it to be a difficult match.

“The Valpo girls were steady all along but we brought our ‘A-game’ and got it done,” said sophomore Natalie Martin.

Eastern gained their first point by winning the first two doubles matches.

The third was not finished because of time constraints and the need for the court but because Eastern already won two of the three the third match was not necessary.

“I would have liked for them to get to finish out the third match,” Blackburn said. “They were playing well and I wanted them to get the win but sometimes it is a matter of time and you can’t always get it done.”

Blackburn said that all the singles matches were close and the women did a good job getting out four wins.

On Saturday the women shut out Chicago State 7-0 with the doubles team of sophomore Jenny Will and freshman Annie Munch gaining their first win of the season.

Blackburn said all the girls came out very focused and won convincingly without any close matches.

Blackburn said that junior Sandra Sasidharan’s victory over Golda Rubina was especially impressive because of Rubina’s record so far this season.

“Our high energy is what distinguishes us from the other teams,” Martin said. “We are borderline obnoxious but that is what we do and we are getting it done.”