Men’s Tennis Hits the Road for Pair of Top 20 Matchups

OXFORD, Miss. – The Ole Miss men's tennis team rolls into their first road SEC matches of the season, with the Rebels slated to take on the difficult gauntlet of No. 19 LSU on March 8 and No. 10 Texas A&M two days later.

Ole Miss (7-5, 0-1 SEC) will start their week off traveling to Baton Rouge to face LSU (11-2, 1-1 SEC) before heading to Texas A&M (10-3, 1-1 SEC) to cap off their road fixture. Live scoring and live video for both matches will be available to the public. Links to both can be found above as well as on the Ole Miss men's tennis schedule page.

Rebels in the Rankings
Seniors Nikola Slavic and Lukas Engelhardt are the lone Rebels to hold a ranking, coming in at No. 54 in the latest ITA Doubles order. As a duo, the Rebels garner an overall record of 19-6 in the 2023-24 season and have gone 9-1 in dual matchups. Most recently, the tandem secured their second ranked win of the year after defeating the 55th-ranked duo of Pierce Rollins and Timothy Seger, 6-3.

Rolling into SEC Play
The Rebels' match against Auburn marked the first of 12 conference matchups for the squad in 2024, with six of those fixtures set to be played in Oxford. After the Rebels hit the road to Baton Rouge and College Station, they will return home March 15 to host Arkansas and then Vanderbilt on March 17. This will then open up a three-match road spell for the team before the Rebels return to Oxford for three straight home matches, ending with Senior Day on April 7 against Tennessee. The Rebels will then wrap up their regular season with a difficult road matchup against Alabama before heading into postseason play.

Seven Wins = Seven Sweeps
The Rebels have been on an absolute tear in all of the team's wins this season. Sweeping all seven of them, six being at home and one in New Orleans, Ole Miss looks to continue this dominance in SEC play. This is the first time the Rebels have secured these many sweeps since the 2021-22 season, where Ole Miss earned eight.

Team Profile: LSU
The LSU Tigers (11-2, 1-1 SEC) enter their matchup with the Rebels ranked as the No. 19 team in the nation in ITA's latest team rankings. The Tigers come into the matchup with Ole Miss coming off of a tough 4-1 loss to Florida who is now ranked No. 27, marking their first team loss since Jan. 28 when they dropped their match against No. 5 South Carolina. The Tigers fought back when it mattered though and defeated the Gamecocks later on in the season, 4-2, in Columbia. LSU's strength comes in pairs as the Tiger boast two ranked teams in the latest poll. Aleksi Lofman and Stefan Latinovic sit just above Engelhardt and Slavic at No. 51 with Welsh Hotard and George Stoupe at No. 73.

Team Profile: Texas A&M
The Aggies (10-3, 1-1 SEC) mark the second straight Top 20 opponent for the Rebels, as No. 10 Texas A&M is set to play host on March 10. The team holds a similar start to SEC play as LSU, garnering a 4-3 victory over #16 South Carolina after getting swept in Gainesville against Florida, 4-0. The team earned prior significant ranked wins throughout the season including another win against South Carolina at the ITA National Team Indoor Championships after topping No. 19 Georgia, 4-2, in the finals of ITA Kickoff Weekend. Headlining the Texas A&M team is the ranked doubles pairing of Togan Tokac and Giulio Perego, who enter Sunday's match ranked as the No. 58 doubles team in the country. The Aggies also thrive in singles, tallying four ranked contenders in the ITA top 120.

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Players Mentioned

Lukas Engelhardt

Nikola Slavic

The University of Mississippi Athletics