TULSA, Okla., – Members of Mississippi State’s men’s tennis team are looking to make their mark over the next few days in one of college tennis’ marquee tournaments.
The Bulldogs sent all eight roster members to Tulsa to take part in the ITA Men’s All-American Championships from Oct. 1-9. The event will feature 256 of the top singles players in collegiate tennis as well as 64 elite doubles tandems playing at Tulsa’s Michael D. Case Tennis Center and LaFortune Park.
“We’re heading into one of the biggest events that college tennis offers,” said assistant coach Jake Jacoby. “It’s great to play guys from all kinds of schools all over the country that we don’t see in our conference all the time. It’ll be a great test for our new guys who have never played this event before and even our returners because we haven’t sent our whole team to this event in a while.
“It’s going to be an awesome – and hopefully long – week of matches in singles and doubles for our team. There will be a lot of ranked opportunities and great competition.”
Singles prequalifying starts on Saturday with five MSU players taking the courts. Graduate Gregor Ramskogler gets things going at 8 a.m. against Eshan Talluri of Texas. If Ramskogler wins, he will play again at 4:30 p.m.
Freshman Petar Jovanovic will participate in his first ITA event at 9:15 a.m. as he takes on Toledo’s Adam Kovac. The winner of that match will move on to the second round at 5 p.m. Graduate Ewen Lumsden meets Gonzaga’s Oliver Andersson at 10:30 a.m. with the victor advancing ahead to play at 5:30 p.m.
Senior Patrick Lazo will battle an SEC foe in the first round in Rahul Dhokia of Texas A&M at 11 a.m. with the winner playing again at 6 p.m. Junior Carles Hernandez will be the final Bulldog to take the court on Saturday, meeting Kerim Hyatt of UT-Chattanooga at noon. Whoever comes out on top between Hernandez and Hyatt will play again at 6 p.m.
Qualifying for the ITA All-American will begin on Monday and the main draw starts on Wednesday. No. 52 Nemanja Malesevic received a bye during the prequalifying rounds.
The ITA All-American Championships are the second tournament State has participated in this fall. Four…
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