TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – A strong showing on Sunday for Ole Miss men’s tennis will have three Rebels marching on in their respective brackets at the ITA Southern Championships in Tuscaloosa.
Nikola Slavic continued his hot streak in Alabama by punching his ticket into the Singles Quarterfinals, while the doubles pairing of John Hallquist Lithen and Simon Junk will battle it out in the tournament’s Doubles Semifinals on Monday.
To open the day, the Rebels fought through two rounds of doubles play to narrow the region’s field from 16 to four in Tuscaloosa.
Lithen and Junk’s day started with an in-conference tangle against the LSU pairing of Chen Dong and Ben Koch. Ranked as the No. 6 doubles team in the region, Lithen and Junk saw a convincing victory to launch them into the quarterfinals, winning 8-1.
The pair then met yet another SEC foe in the Regional Quarterfinals, battled against Jan Galka and Alejandro Moreno of Auburn. With a spot in the semifinal on the line the Rebel duo delivered, fighting their way through to an 8-8 match tiebreaker to decide who would be moving on.
Clutch points from Lithen and Junk proved crucial in the duo’s win, as the pair would ultimately capture the tiebreaker 7-4 to claim the 9-8 win over Galka/Moreno in Tuscaloosa. They now matchup against yet another Auburn duo in Murgett/Stice Monday morning at 9 a.m. CT, with a spot in Tuesday’s Southern Regional Doubles Championship on the line.
The Rebel pairing of Nikola Slavic and Lukas Engelhardt also competed in Sunday’s Round of 16 in doubles, matching up against South Alabama’s Delcour/Clements. Slavic and Engelhardt fought their way to an 8-8 tiebreak of their own to decide the match, but the South Alabama duo eventually came out on top with a 9-8(5) victory.
Slavic returned to the court Sunday afternoon for the Round of 16 in singles play, as the tournament’s No. 1 seed battled it out with in-state rival Petar Jovanovic of Mississippi State. Slavic, who was the 2021 ITA Southern Regional Singles Champion, dominated the match from its beginning to take a 6-4, 6-1 win.
The Stockholm, Sweden, native now moves on to the Singles Quarterfinals, where he will take on Roan Jones (Alabama) at 11 a.m. CT on Monday. A win would earn Slavic a spot in the Singles Semifinals, set to take place Tuesday afternoon.
Lithen also found himself with an…
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