The Ole Miss men’s tennis team claimed victory twice this weekend, once against the No. 38 LSU Tigers and once against the No. 11 Texas A&M Aggies. The Rebels beat LSU 6-1 on Friday, March 5, and then beat Texas A&M on Sunday, March 7.
After the weekend, the Rebels sit with a 5-5 overall record and are currently on a two-game winning streak. The Rebels have also won four out of their five previous SEC match-ups and grasped their first win at home in the Palmer/Salloum Tennis Center since April 2019.
On Friday, Ole Miss didn’t lose one singles match. Senior Finn Reynolds defeated LSU’s Ronald Hohmann 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, and No. 62 Tim Sandkaulen defeated LSU’s Rafael Wagner 6-1, 7-6 (0). Also winning for the Rebels in singles was sophomore Nikola Slavic, who defeated LSU’s Tom Pisane with a score of 6-4, 6-3. Junior Simon Junk came in after Slavic to beat Joao Graca, 6-2, 7-5.
During the unfinished matchup with Ole Miss’s duo No. 7 Reynolds and Sandkaulen, LSU landed the doubles point for the match, but it still wasn’t enough to take the victory. The Rebels went on to win every singles match and only lost one total set.
“It was a great team win today,” head coach Toby Hansson said after the LSU game. “Everyone was fired up and competed really well in singles. We have some things to work on in doubles, but overall I am very pleased with the performance against a dangerous LSU team.”
On Sunday, after a competitive battle, Ole Miss toppled No. 11 Texas A&M, 5-2, and now places at No. 1 in SEC West Standings.
A few back-and-forth performances led to the Rebels’ win. The first victory of the day came from No. 7 duo Reynolds and Sandkaulen who defeated No. 48 Juan Carlos Aguilar and Bjorn Thomson 6-2 in doubles. The other winning duo of the day was freshman Jakob Cadonau and junior Jan Soren Hain, who grasped the victory over A&M’s Pierce Rollins and Valentin Vacherot, 7-6 (5).
In singles, Reynolds, Slavic, freshman John Hallquist Lithén and sophomore Lukas Engelhardt all contributed wins against the Aggies for the overall victory. Slavic won the super tiebreak against Texas A&M’s Juan Carlos Aguilar 11-9 in singles match No. 3 to give Ole Miss the official win.
The Rebels will prepare for its next SEC matchup against the No. 10 Florida Gators on March 12 at 5 p.m. in Oxford.
