Men's Tennis Rallies to Defeat Mississippi State, 4-3

April 8, 1999

OXFORD, Miss. - Ole Miss men's tennis freshman sensation Kristofer Stahlberg came up big for the No. 4 nationally-ranked Rebels in Thursday's match against the 22nd-ranked Mississippi State Bulldogs, pulling out a 7-5, 5-7, 6-4 win over David Ruiz at No. 6 singles to clinch a 4-3 victory at the Palmer/Salloum Tennis Center.

With the win, the Rebels improve to 17-3 overall, 9-1 in the SEC and clinch at least a share of the regular season SEC title. They also clinched the No. 1 seed in the SEC Tournament as a result of their win over Florida, who is 8-2 in the SEC.

"They (State) were preseason No. 3 in the country and they played like it today," head coach Billy Chadwick said. "They had everybody healthy. It took a great team effort to win the match. A key for us was James winning at No. 1 and then Stenman stepping up at No. 4. Selin and Stahlberg took care of business once again at five and six."

Mississippi State got the early lead by winning the doubles point. Matthieu Ballay and Mason Greene knocked off the eighth-ranked team of James Shortall and Martin Sjoqvist 8-5 at No. 1 doubles and then Jeremy Bayon and Mathieu Soto snapped Martin Selin and Stahlberg's nine match win streak at No.3 doubles with a 8-4 win.

Ole Miss quickly regained the momentum, winning the first set in five of the six singles matches. Shortall won in straight sets 6-3, 6-4 over Ballay, an opponent he had lost to twice earlier this year, to even the match.

Selin won his sixth in a row, downing Soto 6-3, 6-3 at No. 5 singles to give Ole Miss a 2-1 lead. State's Baron tied the match at 2-2 with a straight set victory 6-4, 6-2 over the Rebels' Sjoqvist at No. 2 singles.

Anders Stenman put Ole Miss up 3-2 when he beat Conrad Hurter 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 at No. 4 singles. The No. 3 match was locked in a tight battle. Chadha won the first set 7-5 and then Bayon took the second set 7-5. In the third and deciding set, the two battled to a tiebreaker, before Bayon won it 7-6(1) to lock the match at 3-3 before Stahlberg clinched the victory.

It was the second time this season that Stahlberg has clinched a match as he also was the deciding match in the win over South Carolina.

"I saw him (Ruiz) play in Jackson, so I knew how the match was going to be," Stahlberg said. "I just hung in there and fought hard. I was going to fight it out until the end. We wanted revenge and we got it. It was a total team effort."

The Rebels have now won eight in a row and 12 of their last 13 matches. They improve to 10-0 at home this year. The last time they went undefeated at home was back in 1996 when they posted a 9-0 record.

Ole Miss is off until Friday April 16 when they host 12th-ranked Tennessee at 2:00 p.m. at the Palmer/Salloum Tennis Center.

#4 OLE MISS 4 #22 Mississippi State 3

SINGLES#1 James Shortall (OM) def. Matthieu Ballay (MSU)     6-3, 6-4#2 Marco Baron (MSU) def. Martin Sjoqvist (OM)        6-4, 6-2#3 Jeremy Bayon (MSU) def. Vikrant Chadha (OM)        4-6, 7-5, 7-6(1)#4 Anders Stenman (OM) def. Conrad Hurter (MSU)       6-1, 2-6, 6-3#5 Martin Selin (OM) def. Mathieu Soto (MSU)          6-3, 6-3#6 Kristofer Stahlberg (OM) def. David Ruiz (MSU)     7-5, 5-7, 6-4
DOUBLES#1 Ballay-Mason Greene (MSU) def. Shortall-Sjoqvist (OM) 8-5#2 Chadha-Stenman (OM) def. Daniel Healey-Hurter (MSU)   8-5#3 Bayon-Soto (MSU) def. Selin-Stahlberg (OM)            8-4

The University of Mississippi Athletics

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