WINSTON SALEM, N.C. – The Spartans are set to kick off their highly anticipated fall season Friday Sept. 15 through Sunday Sept. 17 against skilled competition at the Wake Forest Duals.
“We’re really excited to kick off the 23-24 season in North Carolina,” Head Coach Harry Jadun said. “We enter the season with a lot of excitement, guys are really pumped and we really feel like we can compete at a high level and make a name for ourselves on a national stage.”
The second year under the direction of Jadun has already shown some promise of what’s to come. On Sept. 5, three Michigan State singles players and two doubles pairings were featured in the ITA Division I Men’s Tennis Preseason Rankings.
The duo of sophomore Ozan Baris and junior Max Sheldon highlighted the Spartans placement, ranked as the No. 2 doubles team for the upcoming season, the highest ranking in program history. Baris and Sheldon are coming off a season that saw the underclassmen earn ITA All-American and First Team All-Big Ten honors after spending 13-straight weeks on the ITA Rankings, reaching as high as No. 6 on two occasions.
Baris, the first Spartan to win Big Ten Freshman Player of the Year since 1993 and first to earn an at-large bid to the NCAA Singles Championships since 2007, also finds himself as the highest-ranking Spartan single at No. 25.
Grad-transfers Ronald Hohmann III and Sebastien Collard followed at No. 37 and No. 110. The pairing of the ex-LSU Tiger and South Alabama Jaguar are tabbed as the No. 52 doubles team, making MSU the only Big Ten program with multiple ranked doubles teams.
Hohmann III is entering his first year with the Spartans after a successful four years at LSU, three as the Tigers No. 1. The New York native ended last season ranked as the ITA No. 24 singles player and was as an ITA All-American in consecutive years.
Collard, the South Alabama No.1 of four years, was the Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year in both 2022 and 2023. The Gatineau, Quebec native improves his career-best ITA singles ranking from No. 123 at the end of last season.
The only other newcomer to Jadun’s squad is redshirt-freshman Aristotelis Thanos, who joined the program from Greece in the spring. The Athens, Greece native has serious potential, having played in three Davis Cups for his nation and having won three pro…
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