Michigan State men's tennis finished out their regular season at home with an historic win over Michigan.
The Spartans faced a tall task in their matchup against the Michigan Wolverines at the MSU Tennis Center on Saturday as, coming into the weekend, MSU had not beaten UM since the 2002-2003 season, a 23-match losing streak against their in-state rivals.
Looking back to the 2002-2003 season, the Spartans faced a similarly tall task then as well. In April of 2003, the Wolverines entered East Lansing ranked No. 68 while the Spartans headed into the matchup unranked. At that time the Spartans had dug themselves a similar hole - a ten year (and 12-match) losing streak against their rivals.
Since that time in 2003 the MSU men's tennis program has seen a change up in coaching staff and most recently the indoor tennis facility, which officially opened in 1986, was resurfaced in 2023. The only thing that remained of the 2003 team's legacy was that spirit and grit that propelled them to snap their own losing streak against the Wolverines 22 years prior.
Last weekend, the winning began for the Spartans in the doubles competition. Brothers Max and Mitchell Sheldon clinched a victory followed shortly after by the No. 1 doubles pair for the Spartans, Ozan Baris and Matthew Forbes.
Michigan State secured the doubles point to go up 1-0, needing to win three of the six singles matches to secure the win.
Things were back and forth a bit during the singles matches, but ultimately wins by Sheldon, Forbes, and No. 6 singles player Danial Rakhmatullayev secured the mammoth win for the Spartans.
Michigan State ended the match with a 4-2 overall score, putting an end to their long losing streak to Michigan.
The men's team will travel to Columbus, Ohio to compete in the Big Ten Tournament against USC on April 25th and 4pm.
This tournament appearance for the Spartans marks the second straight year that MSU is the No. 3 seed in the competition. It is also the Spartans' first time in three years that they aren’t playing a team from Indiana in the opening round of the tournament. MSU played the No. 11-seeded Indiana Hoosiers last year and the No. 10-seeded Purdue Boilermakers in their 2023 tournament opener.
The Spartans faced off once previously with USC this season, where they defeated the Trojans in an impressive 4-3 road victory on Apr. 11. In the previous matchup, the Spartans recorded strong performances from junior Ozan Baris, Max Sheldon, Matthew Forbes, and freshman Mitchell Sheldon.
USC enters the tournament with a 14-9 overall record and an 8-5 record in the Big Ten.
The Trojans are coming off a 4-1 road win against the Wisconsin Badgers in Madison. In the win, the Trojans recorded an impressive doubles win from the pair of graduate Tristan Bradley and senior Peter Maak. The pair of freshman Connor Church and senior Karl Lee also recorded a win in doubles.
Church, Bradley, Lee, and Maak also recorded singles wins for the Trojans, along with a win by sophomore Volodymyr Iakubenko.
The 2025 Big Ten Men’s Tennis Tournament runs from Apr. 24-27 and will be streamed live on Big Ten Plus. The winner of Friday’s matchup between MSU and USC will advance to the semifinals on Saturday against the Michigan/Northwestern/UCLA winner at 1:30 p.m.
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