OXFORD, Miss. – The Ole Miss men’s tennis team (3-2) fought to the bitter end against No. 19 Columbia (2-1) on Friday, but the Rebels were unable to pull off the home upset with the Lions taking home the win 6-1.
Senior Nikola Slavic ended up being the lone singles win of the day for the Rebels, but it was a big one as the Stockholm, Sweden, native took down his biggest opponent yet, earning a hard-fought 7-6 (4), 7-6 (2) victory over No. 11 ranked Michael Zheng. The Rebels also saw a doubles win for the freshman duo of Isac Strömberg and Noah Schlagenhauf, who won their No. 3 doubles match 7-5 to remain undefeated as a pair this spring.
Friday’s match opened up with three extremely tight doubles matches across all three courts, as both teams proved it would be a battle to decide who would come away with the win. Following a 6-3 loss for Slavic and Lukas Engelhardt on Court 1, Strömberg and Schlagenhauf rallied for the Rebels by earning a 7-5 win on Court 3 to level things at one match a piece.
Despite the very best efforts of John Hallquist Lithen and Simon Junk, the duo fell just short of securing the doubles point for the Rebels as Columbia went on to win the match 6-4 and take an early lead heading into singles action.
Headlining singles for both teams was a battle of two heavyweights, as No. 99 ranked Nikola Slavic matched himself up against the No. 11 player in the country in Michael Zheng. Feeding off of the crowd’s energy, Slavic was able to slam the door shut on back-to-back set tiebreakers to earn his second ranked win of 2022-23, taking down Zheng 7-6(4), 7-6(2).
John Hallquist Lithen eventually came up short in…
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