Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Men's Tennis Makes Home Debut Tomorrow

The Ole Miss Internationals will play their first matches in Oxford for the 2008-2009 season tomorrow against the vaunted unoriginal Troy Trojans, who will be fairly outmatched (and likely outdressed) by Billy Chadwick's cadre of continentals.

As they generally are, the team is highly ranked and expected to win their eighth straight SEC West Championship.  The Trojans, meanwhile, have obviously not yet figured out how to recruit the most talented foreigners to the Deep South.  They have met South Carolina and Alabama this year in team competition, losing all six singles points and the doubles point to USC and taking only the #6 singles against the Crimson Tide.

Bram ten Berge, senior All-American, will likely start as the top-seed single for the Rebels, and Mississippi native Devin Britton will be making his debut in Oxford.

Troy ought to be no more than an exhibition for the Rebels, who I confidently expect to win 6-1 or 7-0.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad to see tennis get some much-deserved pub on the blog. Those of you who have never been to a match are missing a great experience.

Anonymous said...

It will probably help that we have an actual Mississippian on the team for once. Right or wrong, I think a lot of people overlook the success of that program because they're normally all foreigners. Or, maybe they just overlook it because it's tennis.

Anonymous said...

There's almost always a native Mississippian on the team. There has been for the past 4 years at least. Britton is really good as well - runner-up at last year's U.S. Open Juniors.

Juco All-American said...

Britton actually enters the match as our No. 1 singles player... already. I get the feeling that this season is going to be incredible.

Anonymous said...

JUCO, why do you think this season will be incredible? we lost our top 4 singles players from last years team. yes, we will still win the west, and yes we will make a run in the tourney, but we do that every year.

Juco All-American said...

@anon,

1. we return two all-americans (Bram ten Berge and Jonas Berg)

2. We signed a freshman who lost in the semi-finals of the SEC Indoor Tournament (Devin Britton) and is already slated to play above them

3. We return an All-SEC player in Kalle Norberg

4. We signed Sweden's number one player in Otto Sauer

5. We signed a pair of twins who were the 60th and 80th best players in all of Germany

6. We return Tucker Norberg, who was injured last season but went 3-2 in the 6 spot as a true freshman.

So yeah, everyone on our team is good.

matthstephenson said...

Juco, I like where you're going with that besides one Freudian slip. Tucker Norberg? Tucker Vorster.

Also @ one of those anons, we only lost our top 3 singles players. The fourth player whom we lost rarely even played in singles (Jakob Klaeson). And I daresay Jonas and Devin will have no problem stepping up in those spots.

It's gonna be a good season. And unlike every other team at Ole Miss, the netters don't disappoint.

Anonymous said...

Don't forget, we also have the #1 doubles team in the nation. Historically, we've been (relatively) weaker in doubles. Not so this year.

Anonymous said...

I hear the home tennis matches can get rowdy. I might have to make an appearance.