After 26 consecutive defeats to Ole Miss dating back to 1999, Mississippi State’s tennis team broke through with a 5-2 win over the Rebels Saturday in front of the largest crowd of the season at the Pitts Tennis Centre.
Although it was Senior Day, it was two freshmen and a sophomore at the bottom of the singles lineup that propelled the No. 21 Bulldogs to the win, giving them a first-round bye and a 4-seed in this week’s SEC tournament in Gainesville, Fla.
After a come-from-behind victory by MSU’s Malte Stropp and Louis Cant over Ole Miss’ ninth-ranked doubles duo of Chris and Marcel Thiemann gave State the doubles point, freshmen Zach White and Stropp, along with sophomore James Chaudry, all won their singles matches in straight sets to give MSU the four points needed to clinch the match.
Juniors George Coupland and Cant both dropped their singles matches, while Artem Ilyushin won his singles match to give the Bulldogs a convincing 5-2 result over the No. 30 Rebels.
The win is MSU’s eighth in their last 10 matches, placing them two games ahead of Auburn and Ole Miss in the final SEC West standings. Head coach Per Nilsson said he hopes to carry the team’s recent momentum into the SEC tournament, where they will play the winner of Thursday’s match between Arkansas and Florida.
“Each match after the Florida match we’ve gotten a little bit better each time, and that was the goal,” Nilsson said. “Now we’ll go to Gainesville and see what we can do there.”
The turning of Saturday’s match was Stropp and Cant’s doubles win over the highly-ranked Thiemann twins.
After Coupland and Ilyushin defeated Ole Miss’ Johan Backstrom and Adrian Skogeng, and Ole Miss countered with a victory over Chaudry and White, the crucial doubles point came down to Stropp and Cant on court one.
MSU’s No. 53-ranked duo fell behind 7-5, and the Thiemann twins were one game away from getting the eighth point needed to clinch the match. From there, the comeback began and Stropp and Cant rallied to win four consecutive games to win the match 9-7 and swing momentum in the Bulldogs’ favor.
Athletic Director Scott Stricklin was in attendance and tweeted Cant and Stropp’s match might be “the most entertaining event I’ve seen this academic year.” The atmosphere added to the match’s intensity, and Stropp said the crowd helped push the team to the win.
“Especially in doubles, the crowd was awesome,” Stropp said. “The whole stands was full and it was fun to play. We just wanted to win for the crowd, and we did it and it was awesome.”
State has not lost this season when they win the doubles point, and it was clear early on in singles play Saturday would be no different.
After Chaudry and White won their matches, Stropp’s win over Jonas Lutjen gave MSU the deciding fourth point. Ilyushin was still deadlocked with 36-ranked Marcel Thiemann when Stropp clinched the win for MSU, and said he was more relaxed after the team result had already been decided.
“I was just like ‘Hey, we won this game, I’m not losing this match,'” Ilyushin said. “Against Ole Miss I just realized you can cut my leg off … I’m not losing this match.”
Coupland and Cant both lost their matches in tiebreakers, and Nilsson said they might have lost their focus after the game was decided. The loss ended Cant’s nine-match win streak, where as Stropp’s victory was his 10th in a row in singles play.
“We haven’t been in that position too many times, but we’re starting to get there and they’re going to have to learn,” Nilsson said. “They want to make it in singles in the NCAA’s and those matches will count.”
As the Bulldogs play in Gainesville later this week, one of the goals will be advancing far enough to be one of the 16 teams selected to host an NCAA original. State was five spots outside the top 16 at No. 21 going into Saturday’s match against Ole Miss.
Nilsson said his team would probably need to win two matches in Gainesville to crack the top 16. Despite getting the bye, the Bulldogs received a tough draw as they could potentially play the home team Florida in their first match and No. 4 Tennessee in the semi-finals. MSU upset Tennessee earlier this season 6-1 on April 1.
As the Bulldogs get ready for postseason play, Nilsson said his team will be prepared for their opponent wherever it ends up playing.
“We’d like to host, but at the same time I don’t think other teams want us to go to their place,” Nilsson said.
Thursday’s match against the Florida-Arkansas winner will begin at 3 p.m.