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SEC Tennis • Mens
administrator
Kellen Walker
State Advances to Quarterfinals With Round of 16 Victory
No. 12 Mississippi State traveled to Columbus, Ohio to take on the sixth-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes in the 2025 NCAA Men’s Tennis Championships in the Round of 16, coming out with a huge 4-2 win to advance to the Quarterfinals for the seventh time in school history and the first since 2018.
Last season, the Bulldogs lost to the Buckeyes in the exact same setting in Columbus, 4-1. This year, they flipped the script for revenge. It began with the doubles point where the No. 1 duo in the nation Petar Jovanovic and Benito Sanchez Martinez took down OSU’s duo of William Jansen and Aiden Kim, 6-4. The win puts the duo at 57 accumulated wins together now, which ties Nuno Borges and Strahinja Rakic for the most all-time in school history. The victory is also the 16th straight for the tandem dating back to February.
Then, with the doubles point on the line, Dusan Milanovic and Michal Novansky secured it for the Bulldogs by defeating the Buckeyes duo of Alex Fuchs and Bryce Nakashima, 7-6(6).
In singles play, Ohio State struck first on court one as 11th-ranked Aiden Kim defeated No. 28 Benito Sanchez Martinez by a score of 6-1, 6-4 to even the match score 1-1. Shortly after, OSU’s 97th ranked Nakashima took down Mississippi State’s Bryan Hernandez Cortes 6-3, 6-4 on court five to rake a 2-1 lead.
From then on, it was all Bulldogs. On court two, No. 67 Petar Jovanovic came out with his eighth ranked singles win after a hard-fought 6-4, 6-3 victory over No. 61 Alexander Bernard to even the score 2-2. Then, MSU’s Mario Martinez Serrano pulled out a 6-4, 6-4 win over the Buckeyes’ Preston Sterns to give State a 3-2 lead.
Dusan Milanovic went on to clinch the match for Mississippi State on court four, taking down William Jansen in an intense 7-5, 7-6(4) battle. Milanovic’s win marked his third match clinch of the season and his third straight singles victory.
The Bulldogs are set to face No. 4 Stanford in the Quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament on Friday, May 16 in Waco, Texas. The match time is to be released at a later date.
