Mississippi State University men’s tennis team secured the three seed in this week’s SEC Tournament at College Station by downing LSU 4-2 Sunday morning. The victory pulled the Bulldogs’ overall record to 18-6 and 9-3 within the conference play.
After dropping a tough match on the road against Vanderbilt just two days prior, Head Coach Matt Roberts liked the response he received from his players and spoke positively of the performance as a whole.
“It’s a tough team. LSU competes hard and they’re good at doubles,” Roberts said. “We just hit the road and came back trying to finish strong. It’s tennis. It’s a tough sport and so I think the guys did a good job fighting and staying together as a team.”        
Beginning with a doubles play, the No. 15 ranked tandem for the Bulldogs of Julian Cash and Florian Lakat took on the No. 23 ranked team of Boris Arias and Jordan Daigle.          
After exchanging points for the majority of the match, the two Bulldogs would force a break later in the set and won the clinching point as they served for the match. 
With the 6-4 win, MSU’s top doubles team finishes the SEC season with a mark of 7-1.
Cash describes the doubles win by praising Lakat’s performance.
“Florian played very well, and he kind of carried me there at the start,” Cash said. “By the end, we were playing good and got the job done. The whole team is playing unreal in doubles right now.”  
Shortly after, MSU grabbed the doubles point when its duo of Mate Cutura and Tassilo Schmid grinded out a 6-4 victory over Justin Butsch and Chris Simpson, their sixth win together in conference play.
Following the conclusion of doubles play, a short ceremony was held for Schmid, the lone senior on the squad. In his short time with Mississippi State, Schmid won 37 matches in singles and doubles combined while also pursuing his bachelor’s degree in management and business.  
Singles play would prove to be a tight affair, as LSU would start things off by winning the first two matches in straight sets to grab an early 2-1 advantage.   
  Butsch would win his match 6-2, 6-4 over Schmid, and Arias battled tough in two straight sets against Cutura to take the match 6-4, 6-4.
Lakat responded for MSU, earning the Bulldogs their second point of the day against Simpson. He would get the better of the LSU No. 1 in straight sets 6-1, 7-5, tying the score at two a piece for the day.
  On court four, Rishab Agarwal improved to 8-0 in SEC play this season by beating Andrew Korinek in three sets 6-2, 1-6, 6-1. The win would put MSU one point away from taking the match, and Agarwal would talk about his undefeated mark after the conclusion of the day.
“I’ve been working hard all year and it feels good to wins all of those matches for the team this year,” Agarwal said.
The last two matches reached the third set and came down to the very end. Action on court six concluded first, when Cash forced a tiebreaker after tying the third set at 6 apiece. Down 4-5 during the tiebreak, Cash conjured up some magic by winning three of the next four points to ultimately win the day for MSU 4-2.
Later, Cash said it meant a lot to him to achieve victory in the tiebreaker situation after losing earlier in the weekend.
“I got a lot of support from the team at court six, which is nice sometimes because everyone can come over and watch,” Cash said. “It was great for me to come back and get the victory after the tough loss at Vanderbilt earlier this week.”
With the regular season now completed, the Bulldogs will turn their attention to the SEC Tournament, where they will be the No. 3 seed. They will not have to play until Friday and will play either Kentucky or Florida.
Roberts discussed feelings regarding his views of his team’s chances next weekend.
“I feel really good about it,” Roberts said. “We need to take a day off and take care of some school as well as refresh our minds. We need to have a good practice down there and our goal is to win the tournament. We’re a top four seed and our goal is to go down there and get some more wins. We might be able to get into the top 16 and host (the NCAA Tournament) maybe as well. We think we can beat anyone in the SEC.”