Ole Miss tennis finished off a three-match home stand Thursday afternoon with a 4-0 win over SEC rival Auburn, improving its record to 7-6.
On a clear, hot Mississippi afternoon, the Rebels’ doubles pairs took the court first and set the tone for the rest of the afternoon. Court two’s Zvonimir Babic and Ricardo Jorge dominated early and finished their match first with a 6-2 win over Auburn’s Edward Nguyen and Brandon Laubser.
Back on court one, Ole Miss’ Grey Hamilton and Fabian Fallert, ranked the 13th best doubles pair in the NCAA, lost a tightly contested match to Maxime Hinnisdaels and Connor Huertas, the 18th-ranked college doubles pair in the country, by a score of 6-3. The match saw plenty of back-and-forth action, but in the end, the Tigers held off a late Ole Miss push to secure the match.
As NCAA scoring provisions award a single point to the team that wins two out of the three doubles matches, the pressure was on for Ole Miss to find a second win. All eyes fell on court three as Filip Kraljevic, a former Croatian youth international, and Tim Sandkaulen, a native of Moenchengladbach, Germany, won a 7-5 nail-biter against Auburn’s Dante Saleh and Olle Thestrup to secure a 1-0 overall lead for the Rebels.
Sophomore Fabian Fallert prepares to hit the ball during a match against the University of Arkansas – Pine Bluff earlier this season. (Photo by: Wilson Benton)
After a brief intermission, singles matches began, and Ole Miss’ Gustav Hansson, ranked 38th nationally in singles, made quick work of Hinnisdaels, winning both sets 6-1, to capture another crucial point for the Rebels. Hansson, a native of Karlskrona, Sweden, has extensive experience playing at the youth level in Europe and won the Swedish championship for his age group in 2009.
Meanwhile, on court four, Fallert, a sophomore from Lichtenstein, Germany, overcame a few second set errors to defeat Nguyen and pick up another point. Fallert won the first set by a score of 6-1 and his second set by a score of 6-4.
Needing four points to win the match, the Rebels, with three points at the time, turned their attention to the four remaining matches, all entering their third sets.
Hamilton, a junior from North Carolina, showed promise after winning his first set by a score of 6-4 but came up short during his second match. Auburn’s Laubser proved a challenging opponent, but Hamilton, who typically does not compete in singles matches, brought the crowd to their feet and captured the third set, and overall match point, with a decisive 7-6 victory. With four points, the judges called an end to the remaining matches and awarded the victory to Ole Miss.
The Rebels, ranked 49th nationally before Thursday’s match, won’t have much time for rest before traveling to Starkville on Saturday for an interstate matchup with Mississippi State. The match is scheduled to start at 3 p.m.
