CHAMPAIGN — If a bothersome right wrist injury he just overcame wasn't enough, another ailment plagued Aleks Vukic last week.
Food poisoning.
The rising Illinois senior and reigning Big Ten Player of the Year has spent the last two weeks refining his tennis game on his home courts at the Atkins Tennis Center, and on Thursday, the Australian native was rewarded with a 2-6, 7-6 (3), 6-3 victory against Santiago Fa Rodriguez Taverna in the quarterfinals of the JSM Futures of Champaign-Urbana.
It was a stomach-churning win — of the good variety, though, in the end — for Vukic as he advanced into a semifinal match at 9 a.