BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The awards continue to roll in for the Mississippi State men’s tennis team.
After No. 7 MSU’s best Southeastern Conference finish since 1993 and its first league tournament title since 1996, junior Nuno Borges was named SEC Player of the Year and Matt Roberts was named SEC Coach of the Year.
Borges is the first Bulldog to earn back-to-back SEC Player of the Year honors, while Roberts, who is in his fourth season as head coach, is the first Bulldog mentor to win the award since Per Nilsson in 2011, and the fifth in program history.
Roberts has led MSU to a 20-2 record this season, including a program-best 11-1 finish in conference play. MSU earned the No. 6 national seed in the NCAA Team Championship, its highest since 1998. It will play host to the first and second rounds of the tournament May 11-12 in Starkville.
“It’s an honor to be a head coach in the SEC and to receive an award like this is very special,” Roberts said. “These young men deserve so much of this credit, as they are the ones growing immensely every week putting the lessons we teach them into practice. When you enjoy your group you work with as much as we do, you are already succeeding as a group and that has been the best part of this year, in my opinion. I want to thank my former assistants Tanner Stump, Matt Walters, and current assistant Andrew Goodwin for working so hard day in and day out, and Per Nilsson for teaching me so much and always having my back.”
One day after securing his second-straight All-America honor by being named the No. 3 seed in the NCAA Singles Championship, Borges made history. He’s one of three players in league history to win the award in back-to-back seasons, joining Georgia’s John Isner and Tennessee’s John-Patrick Smith in the elite club. The honor comes less than a week after Borges was named the SEC’s Scholar-Athlete of the Year in men’s tennis. He is the first SEC men’s tennis student-athlete to sweep the two major SEC awards since the academic laurel began in 2004.
The Maia, Porto, Portugal, standout also was named to the All-SEC First Team in addition to his top honor for the second season in a row.
Borges has been ranked in the top five of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s rankings all season. His 23 wins are second on the team. Nineteen have come against ranked foes.
Strahinja Rakic, Borges’ doubles partner, and sophomore Giovanni Oradini also were named first-team All-SEC.
Rakic and Borges most recently earned the top seed in the upcoming NCAA Doubles Championship — a program first –and also became the first doubles tandem since Laurent Miquelard and Joc Simmons in 1994 to achieve the top ITA ranking in doubles.
The junior from Belgrade, Serbia, owns a 21-10 record, including a 13-5 mark at the No. 3 singles spot. In SEC play, Rakic is 7-3 record.
Oradini earned the first bid of his career to the NCAA Singles Championship. The Rovereto, Italy, native has played at the No. 2 singles position all year and leads the Bulldogs with 27 wins.
MSU junior Niclas Braun makes his second-straight appearance on the All-SEC Second Team. He is 18-8 (13-4 dual at the No. 4 singles). Braun and doubles partner Oradini went 10-0 in SEC play at No. 2 doubles, going 14-1 overall in dual matches.
Rounding out the Bulldogs’ SEC honors is rookie Florian Broska. The Eitelborn, Germany, native earned a spot on the six-member All-SEC Freshman team. Broska went 20-8 at the No. 5 singles, including a 14-5 mark in dual matches and 8-2 in SEC play.
“Today is such an exciting day for our program,” Roberts said. “I’m extremely proud of all of our honorees, who are all very deserving of this. It goes to show that their hard work does not go unnoticed by those outside of our team. As always, today is a great day to be a Bulldog.”
MSU will play host to Tennessee Tech no earlier than 1 p.m. on Friday, May 11, in the first round of the NCAA Team Championship. For full tournament and ticket information, please visit www.hailstate.com/ncaatennis.
Two Rebels earn All-SEC honors
Ole Miss men’s tennis sophomore Tim Sandkaulen was named first-team All-SEC, while senior Gustav Hansson earned second-team honors Thursday.
This marks the first time for Sandkaulen to be honored by the SEC. Sandkaulen, who is ranked No. 32, is 21-12 this season. With Hansson missing a significant portion of the campaign, Sandkaulen took over the No. 1 position and went 7-6 there.
“Tim has kept his head down, worked hard and has made steady improvements in all areas of his game,” Ole Miss coach Toby Hansson said. “He had to step up and play at the top position for us for the majority of this year and has done an outstanding job. He is very deserving of being selected first-team All-SEC.”
With his fourth selection to the All-SEC Team, Hansson becomes the fourth player in program history to earn All-SEC honors all four years of his career. He is ranked No. 49 in the nation with a 9-5 record, 6-4 at No. 1 singles. Hansson played in three SEC matches before being sidelined with injury for the remainder of the regular season.
“Gus was unfortunately forced to be sidelined for most of the spring but was still able to contribute early in the season,” Hansson said. “He helped the team by winning some key matches for us playing at the top position.”
This marks the 25th-consecutive year Ole Miss has had a representative on the All-SEC Team.
Ole Miss earned its 25th-straight NCAA bid and will face Duke in the first round at noon Saturday, May 12, in Palo, Alto, California.
Alabama’s Osama, Ortiz named to the All-SEC Team
Alabama men’s tennis junior Mazen Osama was named first-team All-SEC on Thursday, while sophomore Edson Ortiz earned second-team honors.
Osama became the first All-American for Alabama men’s tennis since 2001 after qualifying as a Top 16 national seed in the NCAA Singles Tournament. Osama has a 15-7 record, including nine wins against nationally ranked foes. The Cairo, Egypt native, has won four-straight matches against Top 125-opponents, including all three he faced last week in the SEC tournament.
Ortiz is second on the team with a 16-6 record in the dual match season, and a 22-10 record overall. The Chihuahua, Mexico native, has been a leader on and off the court, as he was named to the SEC Community Service Team last week.
Osama and Ortiz also qualified for the NCAA Doubles Tournament. Both tournaments will be held May 23-28 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The pair is 16-7 this season with two victories against nationally ranked foes.
Alabama will take on No. 23 Tulane in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at 1 p.m. Friday, May 11, in Tallahassee, Florida.
n In related news, Osama climbed to a career-best No. 10 in the latest computerized Oracle/ITA Collegiate Tennis Men’s Division I Singles Rankings on Thursday, as announced by the association. Osama and Ortiz also jumped four spots in the newest doubles rankings, coming in at No. 26.
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