The 21st-ranked Mississippi State men’s tennis team will look to continue its recent hot streak when they take on Ole Miss Saturday at the A.J. Pitts Tennis Centre.
After clinching the SEC West last weekend with a pair of 5-2 wins over Auburn and Alabama, the Bulldogs (12-7, 7-3 SEC) have now won seven of  their last nine matches, and a win against the Rebels would clinch a first-round bye in next week’s SEC Championship.
Despite the majority of the players from both teams hailing from outside the United States, junior Artem Ilyushin said the players quickly realize how big the MSU-Ole Miss rivalry is in the Magnolia State.
“I don’t know how it goes at Ole Miss, but when I came to Mississippi State, the first thing I learned was ‘we’ve got to beat Ole Miss,'” Ilyushin said.
The Rebels enter Saturday’s match ranked 30th in the country in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association polls, despite losing three of their previous four matches. The number one singles player for Ole Miss, Marcus Thiemann, is ranked 36th in the country in the singles category.
Junior George Coupland is the highest-ranked singles player for the Bulldogs after moving up to No. 55 in the latest polls. Coupland, a Hatfield, England native, said even though a win might not help much in the rankings, there is still plenty to play for on Saturday.
“If there’s one match the whole team has wanted to win throughout this whole year, whole season, it’s Ole Miss,” Coupland said. “Regardless that they’re lower ranked than us. If we beat them, our ranking won’t increase much, but just winning the match that the whole team has wanted to win is huge.”
One of the reasons the Bulldogs find themselves atop the SEC West and eyeing potentially hosting in the first-round of the NCAA Championships is the play of freshmen Malte Stropp and Zach White.
White was named SEC Freshman of the Week after winning his singles matches against Auburn and Alabama last weekend.
Stropp has continued to climb, now up to No.89, in the rankings after winning nine consecutive matches. Junior Louis Cant is also on a nine-match winning streak for the Bulldogs.
While the junior trio of Cant, Coupland and Ilyushin was expected to carry the team this season, Ilyushin said he believes it is the freshmen and the guys at the bottom of the set that have made the team able to improve on its 10-12 record in 2011.
“That’s what we’ve been needing in the past here,” Ilyushin said. “Some new guys come up and they won’t do so great, and, you know, obviously it hurts, but this year coach has done a great job recruiting, and it shows.”
Head coach Per Nilsson, now in his fourth season coaching at his alma mater, said a stomach bug affected members of the team last weekend, including Ilyushin. Nilsson gave the team Monday off to rest, and a few of the players were allowed to miss practice on Tuesday.
Nilsson is hoping his team will be able to move up enough spots in the polls to host in the first round of the NCAA championships, which would require a top-16 ranking. He said winning three more matches could push them over that threshold.
“I like the way we’re setting up to finish strong,” Nilsson said. “We’re going to be in the tournament, and we want to do some damage there. The next couple of matches will decide our draw, and we’ll go from there.”
On the doubles side, the tandem of Coupland and Ilyushin is now ranked 36th, while Cant and Stropp are ranked 53rd as a duo.
Coupland and Ilyushin will be facing the ninth-ranked duo of German twin brothers Cristoph and Marcel Thiemann.
The Bulldogs have struggled recently against Ole Miss and lost 4-1 when they met earlier this season.
“The last couple times we’ve played them, we’ve been really close to beating them,” Ilyushin said. “Now we’re having a great season and have a great shot at taking them down Saturday.”