The run to an SEC championship fell just short for Mississippi State’s men’s tennis team on Sunday in a 4-2 loss to No. 1 Texas at the Mitchell Tennis Center in College Station, Texas.
It was the team’s first conference title game appearance since 2019.
The No. 6 Bulldogs, who were the No. 2 seed in the tournament, began their tournament trek in the quarterfinals and shut out South Carolina 4-0 to advance to the semifinals. With a championship appearance on the line, MSU grabbed a 4-2 win over No. 3 seed LSU in which it won two of three matches in doubles play and three of five in singles action.
In the championship match, Texas grabbed an early lead with a pair of doubles wins. The Longhorns’ Sebastian Gorzny and Lucas Marionneau defeated Mario Martinez Serrano and Niccolo Baroni, 6-2, and Texas’ Sebastian Eriksson and Oliver Ojakaar bested Bryan Hernandez Cortes and Roberto Ferrer Guimaraes, 6-3, for a 1-0 lead. In singles, the Bulldogs pulled away to a 2-1 advantage thanks to a spree of five of six first-set wins – but the Longhorns flipped the match around down the stretch.
Texas’ Kalin Ivanovski rallied from a first-set loss to etch a 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 win over MSU’s Niccolo Baroni and Lucas Marionneau clinched the title for the Longhorns with a 2-6, 7-5, 6-1 victory over MSU’s Roberto Ferrer Guimaraes.
For the Bulldogs, Benito Sanchez Martinez grabbed a 6-2, 6-4 win, and Cortes captured a 6-3, 6-4 triumph for the only two wins in singles action. The victory for Cortes was his ninth consecutive singles win.
The Bulldogs now turn their attention toward the NCAA Tournament and await the reveal of their seeding on April 27.
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