Men’s tennis collected a pair of sweeps over the state of Alabama

OXFORD, Miss. Ole Miss men’s tennis cruised through a busy day of doubleheaders against Alabama State, as the Rebels managed to pick up two 4-0 victories over the Hornets to sweep through their competition on Friday.

The Rebels (6-2, 0-0 SEC) outplayed the Hornets (3-9, 2-0 SWAC) throughout the day, and Ole Miss found singles wins from five different players. to now go on a three game winning streak.

The Rebels started things off Friday by grabbing the first pair of quick doubles points in the opener Nicholas the Slav/Lukas Engelhardt (6-3) and Isac Strömberg/Walker Stearns (7-6) earned a pair of wins at No. 1 and No. 3 doubles.

Momentum for the Rebels carried right into singles Nicholas the Slav took a commanding victory in Court 1 singles 6-2, 6-3. Rebels’ freshman Isac Strömberg followed this with his own straight win at No. 5 and defeated his opponent 6-1, 6-4. This marked Strömberg’s first career match at No. 5 singles for Ole Miss.

“We ended up playing indoors today, but I think the transition from outdoors to indoors went well overall,” Strömberg said. “I’ve been working a lot on my serve over the last two weeks with Toby and Kalle and today it really paid off. I thought I served really well today and got a lot of free points out of it, so I’m happy with that.”

Lukas Engelhardt would eventually clinch the match for the Rebels as the native of Augsburg, Germany swept her set 6-2, 6-3 to earn the team’s fourth and final match point. After winning the match 4-0, the remaining three singles were tied at match one.

In the second match against the Hornets, the Rebels maintained the same energy as the first as they opened doubles play, picking up another pair of wins on court 1 and court 2 to once again take the doubles point of the match.

Slavic and Engelhardt strike first and grab a quick 6-1 win in the No. 1 spot ahead of John Hallquist Lithen and Simon Junk rounded doubles for the day with a 6-3 win in 2nd place.

With the win, Junk is now officially tied with Nik Scholtz for 18th all-time in career doubles wins in program history, collecting 58 wins during his five-year career at Oxford.

Moving into singles, John Hallquist Lithen struck first for the Rebels as Lithen grabbed the pair in quick 6-1 set wins and cruised his way to earn a team-leading 12 singles wins for the 2022-23 season.

Freshman Isac Strömberg didn’t miss Lithen for long, as the talented Swedish newcomer from Stockholm quickly proved that he is fit to play in the number 5 singles spot, defeating his opponent 6-0, 6-2. That left the Rebels needing just one last win to get their second match win of the day against the Hornets.

At the end of the day, the Rebels turned to the team’s veteran Simon Junk, to cap off what was a successful day at the Galtney Tennis Centre. With a strong singles performance, Junk swept Court 3 in singles, battling his way to a 6-4, 6-0 win over the Ole Miss Rebels.

“It was good for us to get these matches today,” Junk said. “We hadn’t played in two weeks and everything was a little rusty at first and it showed in singles. We got better from that in singles and then we got even better in the second match. It was a good opportunity for us to prepare for SMU today and I’m looking forward to it on Sunday.”

Once again, due to a 4-0 Rebel comeback, the remaining three singles were missed to close out the lineup.

Next

The Rebels will return to action as soon as Sunday, February 26th for a non-conference clash with the Southern Methodist Mustangs (6-4). The match between Ole Miss and SMU is set for 12:00 PM CT and, weather permitting, will be played at the Palmer/Salloum Outdoor Tennis Center.

Game 1: Ole Miss 4, Alabama State 0

Double up
Nicholas the Slav/Lukas Engelhardt (OM) def. Du Preez/Bajracharya (ASU) 6-3
John Hallquist Lithes/Simon Junk (OM) vs. Rodriguez/Grandinot (ASU) tied 6-6
Isac Strömberg/Walker Stearns (OM) def. Johnson/Bertone (ASU) 7-6(4)