With over half the season already played, the No. 31 Mississippi State Bulldogs men’s tennis team has handled any competition in its way and shows no signs of slowing down.
MSU dominated the visiting No. 41 Nebraska Cornhuskers Wednesday with a 7-0 victory, making it the fourth victory this season in which the team held the competition to zero points. The Bulldogs now sit with an overall record of 9-5 and 4-1 in SEC play, making MSU No. 1 in the Western Division.
The Bulldogs began the day by clinching the match-opening doubles point, and doing so by winning all three games. The team is 5-0 when winning the doubles point at the beginning of the matches.
The first victory was clinched by the MSU duo of James Chaundry and George Coupland. The pair dominated Nebraska’s Sebastian Florczyk and Andre Stenger with a score of 8-2. 
Next, Bulldogs Artem Ilyushin and Zach White took the next match with an 8-5 victory over the Nebraska tandem of Calin Paar and Robert Schulze, giving the team its first point of the day.
Ilyushin and White extended their doubles winning streak to four games with the victory. Then to sweep the series, No. 69 Louis Cant and Malte Stropp upset Nebraska’s No. 65 team of Benedikt Lindheim and Christopher Aumueller with an 8-7 score.
The Bulldogs then began singles play and claimed opening sets on all six courts. This was similar to their previous four matches, which all started with opening set victories.
White claimed the Bulldogs next point by defeating Schulze 6-2, 6-0, in straight sets.
With the score at 2-0, the nationally ranked Cant also won in straight sets over Nebraska’s Eric Sock, 6-1, 6-0.
As play winded down, Ilyushin, ranked No. 84 in the nation, gave the Bulldogs the go-ahead point to clinch the match by defeating Paar 6-2, 6-1. The victory gave Ilyushin his 30th dual match win of his career, and was the second time this season he claimed victory for the Bulldogs with a match win.
“We all played exceptionally well today,” said Ilyushin. “If you can play your game and go for your shots, we feel like we can come out on top against anybody.”
Next, No. 85 ranked Coupland served up a match win over Lindheim of Nebraska, giving him his third straight dual match win. This extended the Bulldogs lead to 5-0. Chaudry then took down Nebraska’s Tom Blackwell 6-1, 6-3, to improve to an impressive 9-1 mark in dual match play during the 2011 season.
To complete the game, the Bulldog’s three-time SEC Freshman Player of the Week Malte Stropp came from being down to Nebraska’s freshman Florczyk to grab a win with the score of 7-5, 6-2. Stropp extended his dual match play win streak to four with the victory.
“It is always good to win 7-0,” head coach Per Nilsson said. “Good for our confidence, especially against an opponent of Nebraska’s caliber.”
With this being the Bulldogs last non-conference game, the team must now focus on the remainder of the SEC schedule, which boasts the likes of  No. 19 Florida, No. 2 Tennessee and No. 11 Georgia. So far, the Bulldogs have defeated conference foes Vanderbilt, Arkansas, LSU and South Carolina.
The Bulldogs lead the SEC Western division, however, and strong showings in the next few games could clinch the title outright.
“We have a chance to win our next three, especially with them being at home,” said Nilsson. “We are definitely gonna give it our best this Saturday against Florida.”
The Bulldogs won’t have long to celebrate their victory with No. 19 Florida coming to town Saturday. The Bulldogs and Gators will start play at 1 p.m. at the A.J. Pitts Tennis Centre.