In yet another hard-fought victory, Mississippi State’s 46th-ranked men’s tennis team notched a 5-2 upset win over 19th-ranked Georgia Sunday, giving the Bulldogs a weekend sweep combined with their win at No. 35 Tennessee Friday.
The win, which improved MSU’s record to 7-9 overall, 3-5 in the Southeastern Conference, was its first over Georgia since 1996 and its first over UGA in Athens in 37 years.
State gained the first point of the day by claiming victories at the No. 2 and 3 doubles positions, a point that would ultimately prove to be very important in the match. MSU is now 6-0 this season when claiming doubles play.
After Georgia (7-11, 3-5) posted an 8-2 win at the No. 1 position, Rene-Charles Combette and Max Fomine evened things for MSU with an 8-4 victory at No. 3 over UGA’s pair of Will Glenn and Jason Varela. That left the No. 2 spot to decide things. It would be there that State’s Florent Girod and Michael Hailey overcame a 4-2 deficit to rally and down Strahinja Bobusic and Raian Luchici 8-6 at No. 2.
In singles, things got close as the teams split first sets at three apiece, but MSU would eventually win the three matches it had gained the advantage in for the victory, as well as post a comeback win in another contest.
MSU grabbed a 2-0 lead when junior all-American Romain Ambert, ranked 25th nationally, downed UGA’s third-ranked Bo Hodge at the No. 1 spot for his third straight win. Ambert led 6-2, 3-1 when Hodge retired due to injury.
Georgia trimmed the lead to 2-1 with a 6-2, 6-2 victory from Varela over Bulldog Matt Armstrong at No. 6, but State answered that setback with a 6-2, 6-3 triumph from Fomine, ranked 123rd, over Luchici at No. 4. UGA bounced back again, cutting the lead to 3-2 with a 6-3, 6-2 win from 39th-ranked Nicolas Boeker over Combette at No. 2.
That left the final two matches of the day on courts three and five. Both of those contests would go to a third set to make for a tight finish, but State would claim both to secure the win.
It wouldn’t take long for MSU to claim the one point it needed as senior Jerome Le Belicard cruised in the final frame of his match to down Georgia’s Stephan Timu 7-5, 1-6, 6-0 to clinch the team win. The MSU rookie Girod then overcame a set deficit to down Bobusic 4-6, 7-5, 7-6(4) at No. 5 for the final point of the day and his third triumph in four outings.
“I don’t care if I’ve already said it a thousand times this year, we won this match because we fought hard and kept playing and doing the things we were supposed to do,” MSU head coach Sylvain Guichard said. “Any time you beat Georgia, it’s a good day, particularly in Athens. This was an outstanding weekend and I am very proud of our guys.
“We have had our share of adversity this year and it has taken us a while to adjust to that. But our team has never quit working and this weekend it paid off. The guys are playing well right now and just have to continue to battle and do the things (assistant coach) Jeremy (Bayon) and I are telling them to do for the rest of the season.”
State returns home this Friday, April 4, to host 20th-ranked LSU. Match time is set for 2 p.m. at MSU’s A.J. Pitts Tennis Centre. The Bulldogs will then meet No. 26 Arkansas in Fayetteville Sunday before closing out the regular season on Saturday, April 12, hosting fifth-ranked, arch-rival Mississippi as part of Super Bulldog Weekend activities.