FORT WORTH, Texas – No. 32 Ole Miss men’s tennis (16-13, 4-8 SEC) fell in a tightly contested 4-2 defeat against No. 37 Utah (21-7, 4-4 PAC-12) in the team’s opening round matchup of the 2022 NCAA Team Championships on Friday in Texas.
A back-and-forth match from the first serve, the Rebels were able to capture a Doubles point and a Singles victory in the No. 5 position, but would ultimately fall to the Utes with a total of four Singles matches reaching a third set of play. Ole Miss, the No. 2 Seed in the Fort Worth Region, fell to the third-seeded Utes 4-2 marking the end of the Rebels’ NCAA Team Tournament, with the team now looking ahead to Individual NCAA Championships later this month.
The Rebels started their match off by capturing a very tightly contested Doubles point, taking No. 3 Doubles to open the contest. Led by the pairing of John Hallquist Lithén and Nikola Slavic, the duo would power through their Doubles match to claim a 6-2 win in the third Doubles position.
Utah fought back by capturing No. 1 Doubles, 6-3, before the pairing of Simon Junk and Jan Soren Hain took their No. 2 Doubles matchup 7-5 to give Ole Miss an early advantage heading into Singles play.
Utah would battle back from this, leading off Singles play by capturing the No. 3 and No. 6 Singles matches in two and three sets, respectively. Ole Miss responded with a Singles win of their own in the No. 5 position, with Simon Junk winning back-to-back sets to earn a three-set 4-6, 6-2, 6-0 victory to level the scoreboard at 2-2.
Ole Miss was unable to mount another push, however, with the…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Ole Miss Athletics…