The Ole Miss tennis team continued their push up the ITA rankings over the weekend with a convincing win over No. 20 Oklahoma State.
The Rebels beat the Cowboys 4-2 on Friday at the William F. Galtney Indoor Tennis Center to improve to 6-1 on the season, just a week after making their first appearance in the top 25.
Tim Sandkaulen and Finn Reynolds helped get an early lead for the Rebels in the doubles round with a 6-4 victory over Matej Vocel and Dominik Kellovsky, the top-ranked doubles combo in the country.
The Rebels added to the lead with singles victories from Simon Junk and freshman Nikola Slavic. It was sophomore Jan Soren Hain that came up with the match-clinching win on Court 2.
Hain lost the first set 2-6 but rallied in the second to force a third, which he won handily 6-3.
“I didn’t even really see the score when I was playing, but then when I saw 1 and 3 go down, I just locked in,” Hain said. “I knew it had to be right here, right now.”
The team now has two top-25 wins including their win at No. 12 Illinois and their only loss coming at the hands of No. 16 Michigan last week.Their ranking will only go up with this impressive win with SEC play approaching.
The Rebels’ conference slate will start with three straight road trips to Fayetteville, Athens and Knoxville before returning to Oxford to face LSU on March 13.
“Jan [Soren Hain] showed that he can play at a very high level and I’m very proud of how he was able to close that match out in the end,” head coach Toby Hansson said after the match. “Just that match as a whole, starting with doubles- they have really great doubles teams, but so do we. We really went after it and we were active, and played well with a lot of energy, and we kept that momentum going.”
The Rebels will have a short break before returning to the court for the Blue Gray National Tennis Classic in Montgomery starting February 20. Teams participating include Arizona, Alabama, Auburn and Texas Tech.
Ole Miss lost to Arizona in the 2019 tournament final after beating Princeton and Alabama in the first two rounds.
This Ole Miss squad has the potential to stay at the top of the league standings on its way to an NCAA tournament bid, but the conference slate will be a battle every weekend as the Rebels navigate the SEC’s seven other top-25 programs.
