NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Despite a brief intermission due to some passing thunderstorms in Nashville, the Rebels fought through a long day of play at the Commodore Invitational on Saturday to set themselves up for Sunday’s finale.
Finishing the day with a pair of singles wins alongside the team notching its first doubles win of the fall season, the Rebels now enter day three of the Commodore Invitational with a 3-9 singles record and 1-3 doubles record overall.
“We had another good day of competition here in Nashville,” head coach Toby Hansson said. “I feel like every match is a good experience for these guys. We will keep competing hard tomorrow and see if we can finish strong.”
The Rebels got their day started with doubles play, where the duo of Lukas Engelhardt and John Hallquist Lithén got the team going right from the beginning by earning a 6-4 doubles victory over Clemson’s duo of Plans Gonzalez/Azuma. This weekend marks the duo’s first time playing together in doubles since coming to Ole Miss.
Freshman Gordon Whitwell and Walker Stearns also saw an early doubles match to start off their day, matching up against the No. 17 ranked doubles player in the country, Marcus McDaniel, alongside Elias Shokry of Georgia Tech. The young Rebel pairing put up a good fight, but ultimately fell short as the Georgia Tech partners came away with a 6-2 win.
Engelhardt then got the ball rolling for the Rebels in singles play, taking down No. 89 ranked Jan Galka (Auburn) 6-4, 7-5 to earn his first singles win of the year, along with his first ranked singles win since March 28, 2022 (Defeated No. 43 Broska of Mississippi State). Engelhardt’s day ultimately finished with a singles record of 1-1, later falling to South Carolina’s James Story.
Coming off of a ranked singles win of his own on Friday, Lithén also ended his day with a 1-1 record by notching a win over Nic Meister of Illinois. Now sitting with two singles wins on the weekend, Lithén enters day three in Nashville leading the team in singles wins thus far at this weekend’s tournament.
Stearns and Whitwell rounded out the Rebel lineup, each finishing Saturday 0-2 in singles play. They now will wait to learn their singles opponents for tomorrow, as the two were originally scheduled to have to play against each other.
Sunday’s Commodore Invitational finale will begin at 8…
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