Only one Mississippi State team won the SEC West last year, and the men’s tennis team is aiming to have back-to-back titles heading into this spring. After defeating Florida State in the first round of the NCAA Team Championship last season, State fell to Georgia Tech in round two.
However, the Bulldogs racked up numerous honors at the end of the year. George Coupland, Artem Ilyushin and Louis Cant were named All-SEC their junior year while head coach Per Nilsson was the SEC Coach of the Year, and freshman Malte Stropp was named SEC Freshman of the Year.
Since they had no seniors on the team last year, the Bulldogs are back with no losses looking to build on their surprising 2011 finish. Nilsson said the experience of this team puts them in position for another good year.
“This is definitely the strongest team I have had since I have been here,” Nilsson said. “We’ve been doing a lot of hunting and trying to upset other teams, and now our ranking has improved quite a bit, so there’s a little bit of a difference; but our goal is still to be much higher than we are now, and we still feel like there are plenty of teams out there that we need to try to beat.”
In the first road trip of the season, the No. 16 Bulldogs ousted UC-Santa Barbara 5-2 and the University of Hawaii 7-0. Although all the Dogs recorded strong performances, the doubles duo of Cant and Ilyushin defeated Hawaii’s top doubles team in a close battle, 8-7.
These matches were a good warm-up for MSU as the team travels north this weekend to take on No. 53 Michigan State and No. 3 Ohio State. Junior James Chaudry, the 79th-ranked player in the country, said it will be fun playing at such a good program like Ohio State and is expecting a close match.
“We don’t prepare any differently because we take every match the same way regardless of their ranking,” Chaudry said. “We feel like we have a really good chance if we can get off to a good start in the doubles, then we have some really good fire power in the singles.”
Leading the way this weekend for the Dogs will be the trio of seniors who also led the team last year. Thirty-second-ranked Coupland, 45th-ranked Cant, and Ilyushin, who along with Coupland, played in the NCAA Individual Championship last season, are looking to end their final season on another winning note.
Coupland said there is a very positive attitude on the team this year, but everyone is always striving for better things.
“We’re trying to stick together more as a team, support each other more and do the things the coaches are emphasizing,” Coupland said. “As seniors we are trying to emphasize that to the other players on the team, and I think that’s an important job for us leading them and guiding them to do what’s right. It doesn’t come easy, though; you always have to work to be a success in life.”
While the target in the SEC is on the back of the tennis team, the team is only getting better and stronger as they move forward. Chaudry said a lot of hard work must be done in order to keep the crown, but they have the team to do it.
“The whole team atmosphere is really good; the intensity every time we get on the court is really high as a team,” Chaudry said. “Every time we go other places around the country we see how other teams work, and our work ethic here has been a lot stronger than most of those schools, so I think we’re going to be a really strong team this year.”
MSU’s first home match is Feb. 3 against TCU and home SEC play begins March 2 versus Alabama.