The Ole Miss Men’s Tennis team traveled to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, this week for the 2018 Men’s ITA South Regional in a tournament that featured some of the south’s best male talent. Ole Miss had nine players in the tournament across the doubles and singles divisions.
Senior Fabian Fallert and his partner, sophomore Finn Reynolds, did not compete in the doubles division due to already being qualified for the ITA Nationals.
The doubles partnerships that did compete from Ole Miss were senior Filip Kraljevic and junior Tim Sandkaulen, freshman Simon Junk and sophomore Cotter Wilson, and freshman Jan Soeren Hain and freshman Karlo Kranic.
The doubles division saw Wilson and Junk lose to University of San Antonio’s Loic Cloes and Clemont Marzol, while Hain and Kranic won their first match against Southern Miss’s Panji Untung and Teeradon Tortakul. Hain and Kranic would go on to lose in the next round.
Sandkaulen and Kraljevic won their first two matches with the same score of 8-6 to advance to the quarterfinals where they would lose to an LSU duo, ending their run in the tournament.
In the singles division, Kranic — the top seed — and Reynolds were given first-round byes.
In his singles debut, Kranic defeated Eric Wagner of Tulane in consecutive 6-3 sets. After dropping the first set, Reynolds would come back and beat Troy’s Jiaqi Duan 6-2 and 6-4 in his opening match.
Junk defeated LSU’s Nick Watson in a three-set affair with the final two sets going Junk’s way 7-6 and 7-5.
Just like his partner, Hain defeated his opponent in back to back 6-3 sets, eliminating Mississippi State’s Stedman Strickland.
Unfortunately, three Rebels lost their opening singles matches, with Fallert, Wilson and freshman Sebastian Rios all being eliminated from the main draw. Fallert lost in a three-set match while Wilson and Rios each lost in two-set matches.
On day two, Kranic would defeat Tom Cecchetto from Southern Miss in two sets with 6-4 and 6-2 scorelines. Despite winning the first set, Reynolds later lost to South Alabama’s Samuel Serrano.
The round of 32 saw Kranic, Kraljevic and Sandkaulen all compete, with Kranic and Sandkaulen advancing to the round of 16 while Kraljevic was eliminated. Neither Kranic nor Sandkaulen advanced past the round of 16.
Ole Miss had a solid showing in this tournament and has laid the groundwork for a successful season ahead. The Rebels’ next competition will be the USA F29 Futures tournament, followed by the National Fall Championships, which run from Nov. 7 to 11.
