While Ole Miss men’s tennis traveled to Starkville over the weekend for the 2020 Bulldog Challenge and won four matches, the women’s tennis team went to Tuscaloosa to finish with eight strong wins out of 14 matches. 

The University of Alabama, Louisiana State University, Mississippi State and the University of Tennessee tennis teams also competed in the men’s tournament. 

Day one of the tournament was a success for the Rebels’ doubles teams as junior Jan Soren Hain and redshirt senior Tim Sandkaulen defeated LSU’s Boris Kozlov and Nick Watson, 8-1. Redshirt junior Brady Draheim and senior Cotter Wilson defeated Tennessee’s  Martim Prata and Luca Wiedenmann, 8-6 in doubles as well. 

The Rebels’ singles teams didn’t fare as well, with only one victory out of four matches on the day with Sandkaulen defeating LSU’s Ronald Hohmann 7-6(4), 6-4.  

During the second day of the Bulldog Challenge, Ole Miss faced Alabama, LSU and Tennessee and could not come up with a single victory after six tough matches. 

The final day of the tournament resulted in the Rebels winning one out of five matches. Sandkaulen was victorious for the Ole Miss men’s team, defeating Mississippi State’s Nemanja Malesevic in singles 6-1, 0-6, 7-5. 

The men’s tennis team will be back in action the weekend of Nov. 6 at the Georgia Invitational for its final 2020 fall tournament. 

Meanwhile, at the University of Alabama this past weekend, the Ole Miss women’s tennis team wrapped up its 2020 fall season with the SEC Challenge. The team won eight out of 14 matches after competing against Auburn, Mississippi State and LSU.  

The Rebels walked away from day one with five wins out of seven matches after Ole Miss swept doubles. Redshirt junior Tiphanie Fiquet and sophomore Lillian Gabrielsen defeated Auburn’s Anne Marie Hiser and Sydney Orefice, 6-1. Maintaining the winning streak, redshirt senior Alexa Bortles and senior Sabina Machalova went on to defeat Auburn’s Shir Azran and Taylor Russo, 6-4. 

In singles, Machalova defeated Auburn’s Yu Chen 6-2, 6-3, while Fiquet went on to defeat Auburn’s Georgie Axon, 6-1, 6-2. To round out the Rebels, Gabrielsen took down Auburn’s Adeline Flach 6-3, 6-4.  

On day two, Ole Miss won three out of seven matches, and for the first time this season, the Rebels competed against LSU in both singles and doubles, winning three out of five matches against the Tigers. 

Machalova beat LSU’s Safiya Carrington 6-3, 6-4 in singles, followed by Gabrielsen defeating LSU’s Samantha Buyckx 7-6(10), 6-3. Freshman Reka Zadori then took down LSU’s Anna Loughlan 7-6(4), 6-4 for a trifecta of singles wins against the Tigers.  

The Rebels didn’t compete on day three of the tournament. Their season will resume in the Spring of 2021.