No. 7 MSU Hosts Alabama State Friday To Begin NCAA Championship

by Caleb Garner, Graduate Assistant/Communications

STARKVILLE – A new season begins for the No. 7 Mississippi State men's tennis team with the 2019 NCAA Team Championship opening Friday at the A.J. Pitts Tennis Centre.

The two-time reigning SEC Tournament champion Bulldogs (22-3), seeded seventh overall in the field of 64, are one of 16 hosts for the tournament for the second year in a row and will meet three-time SWAC champion Alabama State in the first round. Match time against the Hornets is slated for not before 1 p.m. CT, with the preceding match between Tulane and South Alabama scheduled for 10 a.m.

MSU is looking to advance to the NCAA Round of 16 for the second year in a row and the third time in four years after reaching the quarterfinals a year ago for the first time in 20 seasons. The program has accomplished the feat 13 times in its impressive history. This season features a new Super Regional format for the Round of 16, with the 16 teams playing on campus sites around the country.

Parking
Due to both Mississippi State University spring graduation ceremonies at Humphrey Coliseum Friday, fans attending Friday's matches are asked to park at the Zacharias Village parking lot (view this map for directions to the lot), where a shuttle will transport them to and from the A.J. Pitts Tennis Centre.

Tickets
Tickets for the NCAA event at MSU may be purchased in advance or on each day of the tournament. An all-tournament pass is $8 for adults and $5 for senior citizens, college students, and children 17 & under. Single-day tickets for Friday and Saturday are $5 for adults and $3 for senior citizens, college students, and children 17 & under. Children ages 2 & under will be admitted free. Fans interested in purchasing advance all-tournament tickets may do so by contacting the Mississippi State Athletic Ticket Office (662-325-2600, 1-888-GO-DAWGS or www.hailstate.com/tickets).

MSU In The Oracle ITA Rankings …
The Bulldogs are currently ranked seventh nationally, marking the 25^th straight edition of the rankings in which MSU has appeared in the top 25 and its 21^st appearance in a row in the top 10. In the ITA national singles rankings, three-time SEC Player of the Year Nuno Borges earned the nation's No. 1 ranking for the first time in his career, making him the fourth Bulldog in history to earn the top billing and just the second to do so in both singles and doubles. Giovanni Oradini moved up nine spots to 61^st nationally. State boasts a pair of ranked doubles tandems in third-ranked Nuno Borges and Strahinja Rakic and No. 32 Niclas Braun and Giovanni Oradini.

MSU In The NCAA Individual Championships …
On Tuesday, Borges earned the No. 1 seed in the NCAA Singles Championship after the team tourney concludes. Oradini also notched the first alternate position, giving him an excellent chance of making the draw. In doubles, Borges and Rakic earned an automatic bid as the No. 3 overall seed, while Braun and Oradini garnered an at-large bid, marking the first time State has fielded two doubles pairs in the championship. Action runs May 20-25 at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Florida.

Know The Foes: 2019 NCAA First and Second Round
Alabama State is the Bulldogs' first-round opponent on Friday as a 49-64 alphabetical seed. The Hornets enter the field of 64 as an automatic qualifier after capturing the SWAC title for the third year in a row. Ion Efrim leads ASU with a 13-2 singles mark, including 11 wins at the No. 1 position.

Coming into Starkville as the 17-32 alphabetical seed is Tulane. The 40th-ranked Green Wave is making its 13th NCAA Championship appearance in program history, its fourth in a row, after bowing out of the American Athletic Conference tournament in the quarterfinals. TU will bring to Starkville a pair of ranked singles players, led by Ewan Moore at 65th nationally. Luis Erlenbusch comes in at No. 101 in the singles rankings for the Green Wave. The Bulldogs and Green Wave are no strangers, having met 20 times since 1969, including the last four seasons with MSU taking all four meetings.

The Green Wave will open tourney play against South Alabama, which returns to Starkville for the second year in a row after capturing its second straight Sun Belt Conference crown. Last season, State and USA met in the second round, with the Bulldogs notching a 4-0 victory in Starkville.

Need To Know …

Mississippi State is playing its 95^th season of men's tennis, with Matt Roberts in his fifth season at the helm.
State is a top-16 national seed for the second year in a row
MSU's No. 7 national ranking marks the 25^th straight week the Bulldogs appeared in the top 25 of the Oracle ITA Rankings and its 21^st straight appearance in the top 10.
In the NCAA Team Championship under Roberts, the Bulldogs are 7-4 in four trips. MSU has advanced past the first round in all four, including eight years in a row. In total, the Bulldogs are making their 28^th appearance in the NCAA Tennis Championship, their ninth in a row and 24^th in the last 28 years.
State owns a 3-0 lead in the series against Alabama State, with the most recent win coming in 2016. The Bulldogs have not surrendered a point to the Hornets.
Against South Alabama, MSU is 14-7 since 1974 and have won three in a row and eight of the last 10 meetings. The Bulldogs claimed last season's meeting in the NCAA Second Round by a score of 4-0.
The Bulldogs are 14-6 against Tulane since 1969, winning seven of the last eight meetings and six in a row, including a 4-1 win in February in Lubbock, Texas.
Top-ranked Nuno Borges now ranks atop the MSU career charts in career wins (179), singles wins (114), dual match wins (132) and dual match singles wins (79), and fifth in dual match doubles triumphs (53).
Borges has won a career-best 24 straight matches at present and is 23-0 in dual match singles play this spring. He needs two more wins to match Thomas Dupre's school-record streak of 26 singles wins.
Borges and Strahinja Rakic team up to form MSU's all-time winningest doubles pair (54), while Niclas Braun and Giovanni Oradini are third with 44 wins.
Braun is currently second in career doubles wins (87) and tied for first in dual match doubles wins (57) at MSU. In career dual match wins, the German ranks fourth (114) and is fifth in career victories (171).
Trevor Foshey has won 11 of his last 12 singles matches, including nine in a row.

Live Scoring/Video
Live scoring and video will be available for all matches played at the A.J. Pitts Tennis Centre this weekend via hailstate.com/livemt.

Last Time Out For MSU…
On April 21, the Bulldogs captured their second straight SEC Tournament crown with a 4-1 win against fourth-seeded and then-13^th-ranked Tennessee. State claimed the doubles point with 6-2 wins on courts 2 and 3 before the Volunteers evened it up at 1-all with a straight-set win on court 6. The Bulldogs went ahead 3-1 with wins from Foshey and Rakic to set up Borges' third-set clincher on court 1. Down a set, the eventual SEC Tournament MVP rallied back to take 12 of the final 17 games and lead his team to MSU history as the only program to earn back-to-back conference tournament crowns.

Next Up For MSU …
Should the Bulldogs advance, they will take on either No. 40 Tulane or South Alabama in the second round at 1 p.m. CT Saturday with the winner moving on to the Super Regional held at a campus site against the winner of the four-team regional being held at 10^th-seeded TCU.

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

No. 7 MSU Hosts Alabama State Friday To Begin NCAA Championship

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Nuno Borges

Niclas Braun

Trevor Foshey

Giovanni Oradini

Strahinja Rakic

Mississippi State University Athletics

No. 7 MSU Hosts Alabama State Friday To Begin NCAA Championship

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Nuno Borges

Niclas Braun

Trevor Foshey

Giovanni Oradini

Strahinja Rakic

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