Mississippi State
Pepperdine
No. 9 MSU Hosting ITA Kickoff Weekend
January 24, 2025 | Men's Tennis
STARKVILLE – For the seventh time since 2013 and third time in the past four years, Mississippi State is hosting ITA Kickoff Weekend.
The ninth-ranked Bulldogs will welcome No. 21 NC State, LSU and Pepperdine to the Rula Tennis Pavilion this weekend. Top-seed MSU will kick things off against the fourth-seeded Waves on Saturday at 10 a.m. before No. 2 seed NC State takes on No. 3 seed LSU at 1 p.m.
A consolation match is set for Sunday at 10 a.m. for the two losing teams while the two winners will battle at 1 p.m. to advance to the ITA National Team Indoor Championships in Dallas and Waco, Texas next month.
"We're excited to be able to host ITA Kickoff Weekend again this year," said MSU head coach Matt Roberts. "It's a tremendous opportunity for our team to square off against some top-notch competition early in the season and also for our fans to see some of the premier teams in the nation compete on our courts. We're looking forward to this challenge and testing ourselves against other elite programs to help us continue preparing for conference play."
Mississippi State hosted ITA Kickoff Weekend in 2013, 2014, 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2024 and advanced to the ITA National Indoor Championships on three occasions while hosting. In all, the Bulldogs have competed a dozen times at the ITA National Team Indoor Championships.
MSU is off to a blistering 5-0 start with five-straight shutouts. The Bulldogs have outscored their opponents 35-0 and have not dropped a set this season. They earned 7-0 victories over Troy and Alabama State their last time out this past Sunday.
No. 9 Petar Jovanovic and Benito Sanchez Martinez enter the weekend with 41 career victories together, which is tied with Jordan Angus and Malte Stropp (2013-14) for the fifth-most wins by a doubles duo in program history.
Mississippi State also has the benefit of another ranked tandem in No. 20 Niccolo Barroni and Mario Martinez Sanchez. Jovanovic (45), Baroni (72), Martinez Serrano (81) and Sanchez Martinez (103) are also ranked in singles as well.
Jovanovic currently owns a .695 career winning percentage between singles and doubles, which ranks eighth all-time in the Bulldogs' annals.
Saturday's match against Pepperdine will be the first time MSU has met the Waves since 2003. The Bulldogs hold a slight 3-2 edge in the overall series with all five previous meetings coming on neutral courts.
Pepperdine is 1-1 on the year and coming off its initial win of the year at UT-Arlington 5-2 on Wednesday.
Maxi Homberg headlines the Waves' lineup ranked 36th nationally in singles.
Mississippi State is a perfect 2-0 against NC State having downed the Wolfpack 4-3 in the 2015 ITA Kickoff Weekend in Berkley, California and also winning 5-2 in Starkville in 2017.
NC State is 2-1 on the year and is coming off a 5-2 home loss to No. 21 Harvard on Tuesday. The Wolfpack feature three ranked players in their singles lineup – Braden Shick (17), Martin Borisiouk (26) and Luca Staeheli (97) – as well as the No. 104-ranked doubles team of Shick and Fons Van Sambeek.
MSU has also come out victorious in eight of their last nine matches against fellow SEC foe LSU but trails the Tigers 23-36-1 overall and 11-15 at home. The Bulldogs have won back-to-back meetings against LSU, including a 4-3 triumph in Baton Rouge last spring.
LSU enters the weekend at 2-0 coming off 7-0 shutouts in a home doubleheader against in-state rivals Southern and Louisiana on Jan. 15. Aleksi Lofman and Julien Penzlin make up the nation's No. 28 doubles tandem while Lofman is ranked 75th in singles and Penzlin sits 99th.
Earlier this season, Jovanovic and Sanchez Martinez defeated Lofman and Penzlin 6-3, 6-4 on their home court in the semifinals of the ITA Southern Regional Championships on Oct. 20.
Radomir Tomic topped Penzlin in three sets 6-1, 1-6, 6-2 during their meeting last spring. Jovanovic also owns a singles triumph against Penzlin 6-2, 6-2 during the Round of 16 at the 2023 ITA Southern Regional Championships in Auburn, Alabama.
For more information on the Bulldog men's tennis program, visit HailState.com or search for "HailStateMT" on X, Instagram and Facebook.
