The University of Mississippi Athletics
Rebel Netters To Compete At SEC Indoor Championships
1/12/2005 | Men's Tennis
Jan. 12, 2005
OXFORD, Miss. - The Ole Miss men's tennis team, ranked No. 6 in the nation in the preseason ITA national rankings, will begin the spring season this weekend at the SEC Indoor Championships in New Orleans, La.
The SEC Indoor features the nation's top players, as three conference teams are ranked among the top 10 in the preseason national rankings and nine are among the Top 25. Every school in the conference will be sending players.
The 2004 SEC Champion Rebels will have six players competing this weekend, led by sophomores Eric Claesson and Fredrik Aarum. The pair combined to go 26-9 at the Nos. 5 and 6 positions in 2004 and were huge catalysts in the Rebels championship run.
Claesson will face Marcus Sundh of Kentucky in the first round Friday at 9 a.m., while Aarum will play David Baxendine of Tennessee at 11 a.m. Junior Juan Pablo Di Cesare, who posted a 6-4 record against the SEC last year, will meet Florida's Chris Brandi at 9:30 a.m.
All three of the Rebels' newcomers will get their first taste of the nation's toughest conference, this weekend. Bram ten Berge, of the Netherlands, competed in the fall and posted a 5-3 record, including a win over Mississippi State's top player, Luiz Carvalho.
Jakob Klaeson and Erling Tveit arrived on campus just days ago, and will be competing for the Rebels for the first time. Klaeson comes to Ole Miss as a highly-touted recruit from Sweden. He won the Swedish 18-under championship in both singles and doubles. Klaeson's first opponent will be State newcomer Pierre Mouillon. Tveit, a teammate of Aarum's on the Norweigan Davis Cup team, will face the winner of a play-in match between Michael Jung of Arkansas and Arnaud Roussel of MSU.
Ole Miss has enjoyed huge success at the SEC Indoor Championships, boasting a singles or doubles finalist nine consecutive years from 1993-2001, including five SEC Champions. Joakim Appelqvist and Ali Hamadeh won the doubles title in 1994, and then the Rebels claimed back-to-back singles titles in 1995 and 1996 with Mahesh Bhupathi and Johan Hede. Sebastien DeChaunac won the singles title in 1998. James Shortall reached the singles final in 1999.
