Three Bulldogs Picked To Compete At NCAAs
April 30, 2024 | Men's Tennis
STILLWATER, Okla., - No matter how No. 16 Mississippi State does as a team during the upcoming NCAA Men's Tennis Championships, there will be three Bulldogs advancing to the final site in Stillwater, Oklahoma later this month.
Once a new team is crowned an NCAA champion at the Greenwood Tennis Center, Petar Jovanovic, Nemanja Malesevic and Benito Sanchez Martinez will begin vying for individual titles at the event. No. 49 Jovanovic and No. 53 Malesevic will both compete in the singles bracket while the nation's 12th-ranked tandem of Jovanovic and Sanchez Martinez will try to claim the doubles championship.
The NCAA Men's Tennis Individual Championships will be played from May 20-25 and will mark the first time since 2022 that anyone from MSU has competed. Florian Broska represented the Bulldogs in singles that year and was also part of the last doubles duo to compete in 2021 alongside longtime partner Gregor Ramskogler. Â
Jovanovic has racked up a team-best 48 total wins this season. The Podgorica, Montenegro native has produced 26 singles victories and racked up 22 triumphs alongside Sanchez Martinez in doubles. The first team All-SEC selection has knocked off eight ranked singles opponents throughout the year and won the singles consolation championship at the ITA Fall National Championships in San Diego, California.
Jovanovic and Sanchez Martinez have 10 ranked victories together and top the team by clinching eight doubles points. State has clinched six-straight doubles points with the sophomore tandem of Jovanovic and Sanchez Martinez securing five of those.
Malesevic has earned 10 of his 13 singles victories from the No. 1 position this spring. The three-time All-SEC second team pick is tied for the team lead with five match-clinchers on the year and topped six ranked opponents.
A senior from Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Malesevic ranks seventh in school history with 59 career dual match singles wins.
All of Mississippi State's selections for the individual singles and doubles championships received at-large bids to the tournament. Individual matchups will be selected at a later date and all matches – including doubles – will be best of three sets.
Jovanovic, Malesevic, Sanchez Martinez and the rest of the Bulldogs will be in action this weekend as they host the first and second rounds of the NCAA Championships. MSU takes the courts at the A.J. Pitts Tennis Centre on Friday at 1 p.m. against fourth-seeded Alabama State.
For more information on the Bulldog men's tennis program, visit HailState.com or search for "HailStateMT" on X, Instagram and Facebook.
Players Mentioned
