Mississippi’s Nik Scholtz celebrates after wining his match during the 2014 ITA Kickoff Weekend against Michigan in Oxford, Miss., Saturday Jan. 25, 2014. Scholtz won 6-4 6-2. (Photo by Ignacio Murillo)
The first conference road trip for the Ole Miss men’s tennis team this weekend provides no easy task, but it’s a must win as they look to get in the win column in SEC play.
Ole Miss will travel to play No. 13 Tennessee on Friday and then to play No. 16 Georgia on Sunday. The matches this weekend will show a lot of what the Rebels are made of, as they play two of the top three ranked teams in the conference.
The Rebels started SEC play on the wrong foot, as they lost to Auburn and Alabama last weekend. The doubles point continues to be the achilles heel for the Rebels, as they lost the doubles point in both matches. This puts the Rebels in a tough situation, having to win four of the six singles matches because of the loss in doubles.
Ole Miss will continue to look for good play from veteran Nik Scholtz and help from freshman Ricardo Jorge, who has shown potential.
Tennessee goes into the match with a 11-4 overall record and a 9-1 record at home. Their only loss at home so far this season came against Georgia last Sunday, in which they lost 4-0. Tennessee then faced No. 52 Georgia Tech and won 4-1.
Georgia comes into the weekend with a 5-5 overall record, going 4-0 at home. All of the Bulldogs’ losses came against quality opponents this season, which include No. 7 Texas, No. 5 USC, No. 3 UCLA, No. 26 Florida and No. 17 Mississippi State. Georgia won against Tennessee and Georgia Tech after that.
There are a lot of things the Rebels need to fix in order to get the season back on track. A weekend like this will give them a great opportunity to do just that. If the Rebels can pull out wins at Tennessee and Georgia, or even one of the two, it would be a step in the right direction.
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