No. 6 Bulldogs Begin 2018 SEC Tourney Title Defense Against Vanderbilt Early Friday

Friday, April 19

Gainesville, Fla.

7:00 AM

Mississippi State

Vanderbilt

No. 6 MSU will open its 2018 SEC Tournament title defense on Friday morning against Vanderbilt.

Photo by: Trevor Birchett/MSU Athletics

No. 6 Bulldogs Begin 2018 SEC Tourney Title Defense Against Vanderbilt Early Friday

April 18, 2019 | Men's Tennis

2019 SEC Men's Tennis Championship HQ Live Video/Scoring 2018-19 Men's Tennis Stats (PDF)

by Caleb Garner, Graduate Assistant/Communications

STARKVILLE – With the regular season in the books, the No. 6 Mississippi State men's tennis team is set to begin its 2018 SEC Championship title defense on Friday morning as the No. 2 seed in the tournament. The Bulldogs will take on No. 36 and 10^th-seeded Vanderbilt at 7 a.m. CT at Florida's Alfred A. Ring Tennis Complex.

The match was originally slated for 11 a.m. CT but expected rain in the forecast for later Friday prompted officials to alter the day's schedule. This moved up the Bulldogs' (19-3) SEC Championship quarterfinal contest against the Commodores (15-10) three hours to allow for the match to be played outdoors.

MSU In The Oracle ITA Rankings …
The Bulldogs are currently ranked sixth nationally, marking the 23^rd straight edition of the rankings in which MSU has appeared in the top 25 and its 19^th 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 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. 20 Niclas Braun and Giovanni Oradini.

Know The Foe: Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt advanced to the SEC quarterfinals after upsetting seventh-seeded and 33^rd-ranked Kentucky in a fierce 4-3 battle Thursday afternoon to halt a three-match losing skid. The Bulldogs and Commodores met on March 1 to open 2019 SEC play, with MSU sweeping VU 7-0 in Starkville.

Cameron Klinger is the lone ranked singles player for Vandy at 78^th nationally. Klinger teams up with Billy Rowe to form the No. 14 doubles pair in the country.

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. 6 national ranking marks the 23^rd straight week the Bulldogs appeared in the top 25 of the Oracle ITA Rankings and its 19^th straight appearance in the top 10.
State's 2018 SEC Championship title was the program's second, the other coming in 1996 in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
MSU has advanced to the SEC semifinals each of the last four seasons, and the finals the last two.
As a program, MSU is 30-27 in the SEC Championship since it went to dual match format in 1990. The Bulldogs are 8-3 in the tournament under Roberts.
The Bulldogs have won the doubles point in 31 of their last 33 matches.
In the series since 1970, MSU holds a commanding 41-14 lead against Vanderbilt, having won five of the last seven meetings, including four in a row. This year, State claimed a 7-0 sweep over the Commodores to open SEC play on March 1.
Nuno Borges ranks atop the MSU career charts in dual match wins (129) and dual match singles wins (76), while ranking second in singles wins (111) and total victories (176), and fifth in dual match doubles triumphs (53).
Borges has won a career-best 21 straight matches at present and is 20-0 in dual match singles play this spring.
Borges and Strahinja Rakic team up to form MSU's all-time winningest doubles pair (54), 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
Since the Bulldogs are scheduled to play on courts 1-6 at the Alfred A. Ring Tennis Complex, both live scoring and live video will be available for Friday morning's MSU-VU matchup.

Last Time Out For MSU…
On Sunday, the Bulldogs cruised to a 4-0 victory at No. 36 LSU by taking doubles before claiming all six first sets in singles in the regular-season finale. Straight-set victories by Borges and Oradini set up a ranked victory by Strahinja Rakic to clinch the victory.

Next Up For MSU …
Should the Bulldogs advance, they will take on either No. 11 Texas A&M, seeded third, or sixth-seeded and 22^nd-ranked South Carolina in the tourney semifinals at 11 a.m. CT on Saturday.

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