Mississippi State’s tennis teams have concluded the season with each failing to advance past the first round of the Southeastern Conference Championships. Men
Mississippi State’s netmen have had a frustrating end to the season after several agonizingly close losses, but it was with a 4-0 shutout to the 18th-ranked LSU that the Bulldogs called it quits on an up and down season.
The loss came in the first round of the SEC Championships, held at the George M. Billingsley Tennis Center on the University of Arkansas campus. It marks the first time State has exited the competition in the first round since 2003. Head coach Per Nilsson was surprised at the nature of the loss, having played the Tigers much closer earlier in the season.
“It was a disappointing loss, to say the least,” Nilsson said.
“I thought we had a great chance of beating them this time after coming close a few weeks ago, but we just got blown away.”
The match started poorly for the Bulldogs as LSU claimed the doubles point after taking two out of the three doubles
match-ups. The first match ended with Sebastian Carlsson and Jan Zelezny topping MSU’s pair of Artem Kuznetsov and Antonio Lastre 8-1.
The 26th-ranked Michael Venus and James Cluskey then clinched the point for the Tigers with an 8-5 win over State’s Ryan Farlow and Pjotrs Necajevs. With the point claimed, Ivan Bjelica’s and Philippe Frayssinoux’s match against LSU’s Colt Gaston and Kevin Dessauer was suspended with the score tied at 7-7.
LSU doubled its lead as singles began as Gaston downed MSU’s Farlow 6-2, 6-1. The Tigers’ Cluskey fought back from a first set deficit to defeat Kuznetsov 7-5, 6-0 to leave LSU a point away from advancing to the second round.
That point came with Dessauer’s 6-3, 6-4 over State’s Farlow, clinching the win for the Tigers.
The win left three matches suspended. MSU’s 16th-ranked Ivan Bjelica was leading the 39th-ranked Venus 5-2 in the second set after dropping the first 3-6. State’s 48th-ranked Frayssinoux and Lastre were both trailing when their matches were suspended.
With the loss, MSU falls to 8-12 overall this season, and is now 20-18 in the tournament since 1990. With team competition over with, Nilsson already has his sights set on next season.
“It’s been a slightly disappointing season for us, and we’ve had many close losses,” Nilsson said. “Right now, we just need to regroup and see what we need to work on for next season.”
Women
Thursday was no less kind to Mississippi State’s lady netters, as the team fell 4-0 to 24th-ranked Tennessee in the opening round of the SEC Championship.
Hosted by Auburn University, the tournament marked State’s last chance to find a win
against a conference opponent this season after going 0-11 in an extremely competitive SEC.
Tennessee jumped out to an early lead after a clean sweep of the doubles matches. Tennessee’s Rosalia Alda and Ghizela
Schutte earned a dominating 8-0 win against State’s Radka Ferancova and Renee Joseph. The Lady Vols clinched the point with another strong win, as Connor Vogel and Jennifer Meredith won 8-2 against State’s Tatiana Feit and Valeriya Makarycheva.
Tennessee’s 13th-ranked pair of Caitlin Whoriskey
and Zsofia Zubor were leading 6-2 against Martina Banikova and Elna de Villiers when their match was suspended.
Five of the first six singles sets were won by the Lady Vols to set up a comfortable advantage for Tennessee.
The lead was doubled with Schutte’s 6-0, 6-2 win over Joseph.
Vogel then put Tennessee 3-0 up with a 6-4, 6-1 win over State’s Makarycheva.
UT’s Alda defeated DeAndra Saddler 6-0, 7-6, putting an end to the remaining three matches, as well as the Bulldogs’ season.