NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Ole Miss men’s tennis is set to kick off their fall season with the playing of the Commodore Invitational hosted by Vanderbilt University September 23-25.
Lukas Engelhardt, John Hallquist Lithén, Walker Stearns and Gordon Whitwell are all set to make the trip up to Nashville for the Rebels, marking the team’s first trip to Vanderbilt for a fall tournament since 2019.
Hosted at Currey Tennis Center, the three-day event will consist of three rounds of doubles play, as well as four rounds of singles play spread across the facility’s 15 courts. The tournament’s field features a total of ten teams, eight of which concluded the 2021-22 season ranked within ITA’s Top 50 Team Rankings.
Friday, September 23 – One round of doubles, one round of singles (9 a.m. CT start)
Saturday, September 24 – One round of doubles, two rounds of singles (9 a.m. CT start)
Sunday, September 25 – One round of doubles, one round of singles (8 a.m. CT start)
Lukas Engelhardt (Sr.*) – Augsburg, Germany
– Finished 2021-22 with 19-12 singles record and 19-13 doubles record
– Enters 2022 fall season ranked No. 46 in doubles by the ITA
– Reached peak doubles ranking of No. 2 overall in spring of 2022
– Advanced to the 2022 NCAA Doubles Round of 32 alongside Finn Reynolds
John Hallquist Lithén (Jr.) – Gothenburg, Sweden
– Concluded 2021-22 with record of 18-16 in singles and 20-9 in doubles
– Earned career-high doubles ranking of No. 24 overall at conclusion of 2021 fall season
– Saw a peak ITA singles ranking of No. 98 in spring of 2022
– 2021 SEC All-Freshman Team selection
Walker Stearns (So.) – Germantown, Tenn.
– Ended his freshman campaign with singles record of 7-6 and doubles record of 1-2
– TSSAA Div. II-A Singles Champion in 2021 and 2019
– TSSAA Div. II-A Doubles Champion in 2018
– Former four-star recruit by Tennis Recruiting coming out of high school
Gordon Whitwell (Fr.) – Oxford, Miss.
– Four-star recruit by Tennis Recruiting coming out of high school
– 2021 Mississippi Dorothy Vest Jr Tennis Player of the Year
– Two-time team state champion with Oxford High School
– No. 1 recruit from Mississippi and No. 115 recruit in the U.S. for 2022
Auburn
Clemson
Florida
Georgia Tech
Illinois
Oklahoma
Ole Miss
South Carolina
Texas
Vanderbilt
Live scoring will be available for all three days in Nashville, with each individual day having its own live stats page (links provided above). Live video will also be available for 11 of the 15 courts being used over the weekend (Outdoor Courts 1-6 and Indoor Courts 1-5), with the link provided above leading to the main hub of all court streams.
The Rebels have a busy fall schedule ahead of them in preparation for the beginning of the team’s dual schedule at the turn of the new year. Following the team’s trip to Nashville, the Rebels will head to Tulsa, Oklahoma, for the annual ITA All-American Championships, which are set to run October 1-9. The team will then head to the University of Alabama for this year’s installment of the ITA Southern Championships (Oct. 13-18) in Tuscaloosa. The Rebels’ fall season then concludes with a doubleheader weekend consisting of the Georgia Tech Invitational (Nov. 4-6) in Atlanta and the ITA National Fall Championships (Nov. 2-6) in San Diego.
| THE RETURN OF AN ALL-AMERICAN |
Senior Nikola Slavic returns for his fourth season with Ole Miss men’s tennis after putting together a season for the history books in 2021-22 for the Rebels. Coming off of a year in which he finished with a singles record of 22-13 en route to being named the 32nd All-American in program history, Slavic now enters the 2022-23 season ranked a career-high No. 6 in the country in the ITA’s preseason singles polls. This fall Slavic will aim to defend his title of 2021 ITA Southern Regional Singles Champion, after Slavic became just the fourth Rebel in program history to ever win an ITA Regional in singles play last fall.
| WELCOMING WHITWELL TO OXFORD |
Amongst many of the familiar faces hitting the court for the Rebels this fall is a newcomer to Ole Miss men’s tennis, Oxford’s own Gordon Whitwell. The lone freshman in the Rebel lineup this fall, Whitwell joins the Rebels rated as a four-star recruit according to Tennis Recruiting, along with being the No. 1 ranked recruit in the state of Mississippi and No. 115 overall recruit in the United States. Whitwell brings numerous individual and team accolades with him into the Ole Miss lineup, having been a two-time team state champion with Oxford High School along with earning the 2021 Mississippi Dorothy Vest Jr Tennis Player of the Year award.
| FOLLOW THE REBELS ON SOCIAL |
For more information on Ole Miss Men’s Tennis, follow the Rebels on Twitter at @OleMissMTennis, on Facebook at OleMissMTennis and on Instagram at OleMissMTennis, follow Coach Hansson on Twitter at @TennisToby.
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