MSU Top Seed In Singles & Doubles As Main Draw At ITA All-American Begins

Thursday, October 4

Tulsa, Okla.

All Day

Mississippi State

ITA All-American Championships

MSU owns the top seeds in both singles and doubles at the ITA All-American Championships--the first time the Bulldogs have accomplished such a feat in a major collegiate tournament.

MSU Top Seed In Singles & Doubles As Main Draw At ITA All-American Begins

October 03, 2018 | Men's Tennis

2018 ITA All-American Championships HQ Live Video/Scoring Singles Main Draw (PDF)Doubles Main Draw (PDF)

by Caleb Garner, Graduate Assistant/Communications

TULSA, Okla. – With the qualifying draw of the 2018 ITA All-American Championships wrapped up, four members of the Mississippi State men's tennis team are now set to take the court in main draw action.

Bulldogs are the top seeds in both singles and doubles this weekend, marking the first time in history State has accomplished that feat in a major collegiate event.

Three Bulldogs open up play in the 64-player singles main draw that begins Thursday at the University of Tulsa's Case Tennis Center, led by State's second-ranked senior Nuno Borges, who earned the tournament's No. 1 seed. Fifth-ranked Bulldog junior Giovanni Oradini enters as the No. 3 seed overall, while No. 43 Strahinja Rakic also earned an automatic bid to the field.

With the three automatic entries in the singles main draw and two in doubles, the Bulldogs are tied for the most in the country in both areas.

The two-time All-American and SEC Player of the Year Borges starts action at 9 a.m. CT Thursday, taking on Ohio State's John McNally who is ranked 51st nationally. At the same time, the 2018 ITA singles All-American Oradini will take on 45th-ranked Stefan Milicevic of Minnesota.

At 10 a.m., Rakic will take the stage against another Buckeye in 17th-ranked JJ Wolf, who enters the tournament as a 9-16 alphabetical seed.

A pair of top 10-ranked State tandems will take the court in the 32-team doubles main draw, headlined by Borges and Rakic – currently the nation's top-ranked duo. MSU's seventh-ranked pair of Niclas Braun and Oradini are the fourth-seeded team in the bracket.

Braun and Oradini will open doubles action at 1:30 p.m. Thursday against BYU's pair of Sean Hill and Jeffrey Hsu. Approximately 30 minutes later, the top-seeded NCAA quarterfinalists Borges and Rakic will face Cal's Jacob Brumm and Yuta Kikuchi, who earned a spot in the draw as a lucky loser out of qualifying.

The ITA All-American is one of the major national events of the collegiate tennis season. Bulldogs have claimed the singles title at the event twice (Daniel Courcol, 1992 & Thomas Dupre, 1996). Courcol teamed with Laurent Miquelard to claim the '92 doubles crown as well.

For more information on the Mississippi State men's tennis program, follow "HailStateMT" on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.