LEXINGTON, Ky.?The No. 54 University of Kentucky men?s tennis team will travel for the third weekend of Southeastern Conference action when they play at No. 71 Mississippi State on Friday and at No. 9 Mississippi on Sunday.
Kentucky (10-6, 2-2) will first face a struggling Bulldogs? (3-9, 0-4) squad that has dropped its last seven matches. In Mississippi State?s last time out, they dropped their fourth 4-3 decision this season when they fell to UNLV. For only the third time this year, Mississippi State won the opening doubles point to take the early advantage, but then watched the Rebels rally in singles play for the victory.
The Bulldogs? are led by No. 39 Ivan Bjelica who sports a 20-10 singles record.
Kentucky will then face No. 9 Ole Miss (14-2, 3-1) on Sunday, a team that has defeated UK in the last six meetings. Not only is Mississippi among the nation?s elite, they have won 40 of their last 41 regular season home matches and are 8-0 this season, including 2-0 in league play. Erling Tveit, ranked No. 15 in the nation, leads the team with an 11-3 record at No. 1 singles. He has plenty of help down the lineup, as No. 32 Robbye Poole has won 12 of his last 14 matches and two other players are ranked in the top 110 in the country.
Mississippi also owns two top-rated singles tandems in Jakob Klaeson and Chris Rea at No. 30 and Eric Claesson and Tveit at No. 51.
The Blue and White enter the weekend riding a three match win streak, and winners of five of its last seven matches. UK is 2-2 in conference play and will hit the road in SEC action for the second time this season. In their last outing, Kentucky?s strong singles play guided them to a perfect doubleheader victory over Indiana State and Murray State sweeping both matches 6-0.
UK will also trot out its first nationally ranked doubles tandem since the All-American duo of Jesse Witten and Tigran Martirosyan in 2005. Senior Peter Bjork and junior Will Ward sport an unblemished 8-0 record in doubles action and will put their perfect 2-0 mark in conference action on the line this weekend.
Pacing the singles play is No. 88 Bruno Agostinelli who hones a 16-10 record overall. Ward also enters the rankings this week in singles play, at No. 96 and remains unbeaten in league action. Junior Marcus Sundh leads the team with a 12-4 mark in dual match play, while Bjork has a 10-3 clip in dual play.
First serve is set with the Bulldogs at 2 p.m. CDT. The match with Ole Miss is slated to begin at 1 p.m. Complete results of this weekend?s action can be found at www.ukathletics.com.
