No. 7 Men’s Tennis Set For Regular Season Finale At LSU

Sunday, April 14

Baton Rouge, La.

12:00 PM

Mississippi State

LSU

No. 7 MSU is set to conclude its 2019 regular season on Sunday at LSU.

No. 7 Men’s Tennis Set For Regular Season Finale At LSU

April 13, 2019 | Men's Tennis

Live Video Live Scoring 2018-19 Men's Tennis Stats (PDF)

by Caleb Garner, Graduate Assistant/Communications

STARKVILLE – Looking to finish the regular season on a season-best nine-match winning streak, the No. 7 Mississippi State men's tennis team is set for a Sunday battle at No. 36 LSU at Noon CT in Baton Rouge.

The Bulldogs (18-3, 10-1 SEC) are fresh off the heels of a dominant 6-1 victory over eighth-ranked Texas A&M in College Station on Friday and hope to earn another victory before the 2019 SEC Championship against the Tigers (16-9, 3-8).

MSU In The Oracle ITA Rankings …
The Bulldogs are currently ranked seventh nationally, marking the 22nd straight edition of the rankings in which MSU has appeared in the top 25 and its 18th appearance in a row in the top 10. In the ITA national singles rankings, two-time All-American Nuno Borges leads three State players at No. 2 in the nation (matching his career-best), while Giovanni Oradini comes in at 70th nationally. State boasts a pair of ranked doubles tandems in third-ranked Nuno Borges and Strahinja Rakic and No. 15 Niclas Braun and Giovanni Oradini. The Bulldogs are one of just two programs in the nation with more than one duo in the top 15.

Know The Foe: LSU
LSU enters Sunday's match after dropping a tough 4-3 decision to No. 33 Ole Miss at home Friday. The Tigers' lone ranked singles player is No. 107 Boris Kozlov, who is an impressive 17-4 this season, including a 13-3 mark at No. 4 singles. Joey Thomas is second on the squad with 15 wins at No. 5, while Malik Bhatnagar is 14-9 in 2019 with 11 of those triumphs coming at the No. 3 position.

In doubles, Joey Thomas and Rafael Wagner team up to form the nation's 42^nd-ranked tandem, holding a team-leading 14-9 mark in dual matches – 8-9 at No. 1 and a perfect 6-0 at the No. 2 spot. Kozlov and Nick Watson hold the best doubles winning percentage on the team at 12-2 overall with an 11-2 mark at the No. 3 position.

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.
MSU's No. 7 national ranking marks the 22^nd straight week the Bulldogs appeared in the top 25 of the Oracle ITA Rankings and its 18^th straight appearance in the top 10.
Roberts earned his 100^th career victory on Friday and ranks third in program history.
The Bulldogs have won the doubles point in 30 of their last 32 matches.
In the series since 1969, LSU holds a 35-18-1 advantage, but MSU has been the better team over the past decade, winning nine of the last 11 meetings, including three in a row entering Sunday's showdown.
Nuno Borges ranks atop the MSU career wins charts in dual match wins (127) and dual match singles wins (75), while ranking second in singles wins (110), third in total victories (174) and seventh in dual match doubles triumphs (52).
Borges has won a career-best 20 straight matches at present and is 19-0 in dual match singles play this spring.
Borges and Strahinja Rakic team up to form MSU's all-time winningest doubles pair (53), while Niclas Braun and Giovanni Oradini are fourth with 41 wins.
Braun is currently second in career doubles wins (84) and tied for third in dual match doubles wins (54) at MSU. In career dual match wins, the German ranks fifth (109) and is tied for seventh in career victories (166).
Trevor Foshey has won eight of his last nine singles matches, including six in a row.
Florian Broska has won two matches in a row.

Live Scoring/Video
Sunday's match in Baton Rouge will feature live video and live scoring.

Last Time Out For MSU…
On Friday, the Bulldogs put together one of their best performances of the year in a 6-1 triumph over No. 8 Texas A&M in College Station. State took a quick doubles point with wins on courts 1 and 3 before claiming four first sets in singles. State quickly went up 3-0 with 6-3, 6-3 wins by Nuno Borges and Florian Broska before the Aggies got on the board with a win on court 3. Trevor Foshey then provided MSU's clincher with an exciting three-set triumph, claiming a third-set tiebreaker for the win. The Bulldogs then captured courts 2 and 4, with Giovanni Oradini and Niclas Braun coming away with victories.

Next Up For MSU …
State's match against the Tigers marks the final outing of the 2019 regular season before the 2019 SEC Championship next week in Gainesville, Florida. The Bulldogs are assured of a top four seed and double-bye in the tournament and will open play in the quarterfinals on Friday. The full draw for the event will be released Sunday night.

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