Michigan State tennis upsets highest-ranked team ever with win over No. 7 Kentucky

Posted by author January 18, 2025 Tennis

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State Journal staff reports
| Lansing State Journal

EAST LANSING — The No. 23 Michigan State men’s tennis team upset No. 7 Kentucky for the Spartans’ highest-ranked win in program history Friday night at a raucous MSU Indoor Tennis Center.

A crowd of 707 mostly green-and-white clad Spartan fans made for a memorable night in MSU’s 2025 spring and home opener.

MSU’s previous highest-ranked win was in 2004 when the Spartans topped No. 8 Vanderbilt 4-3.

“I’m just happy for the guys, but also, I think it starts and ends with the facility being packed with fans today,” MSU coach Harry Jadun said. “College tennis is a lot of big points, moments, and deuce points, and I feel like the crowd really tipped those in our favor tonight. If that match is played on a neutral site, who knows what happens, but it’s awesome to see the facility packed.”

A new doubles pairing was set to take the court with junior Ozan Baris and freshman Vuk Radjenovic, who faced Kentucky’s Martin Breysach and Jaden Weekes. The Spartans had two familiar double pairings with No. 107-ranked tandem of senior Max Sheldon and freshman Matthew Forbes and No. 66-ranked duo of sophomore Taym Alazmeh and freshman Danial Rakhmatullayev.

The Spartans took control quickly with Alazmeh and Rakhmatullayev helping earn a part of the Spartans’ doubles point and bring energy for their teammates and from the crowd.

Baris and Radjenovic used the momentum to finish their match with a 6-4 win, earning the team the doubles point. With the doubles point secure, Forbes/Sheldon’s match went unfinished (5-4).

“We already knew against this team, we were going to need to have some things go in our favor, and if you’re up 1-0, it just makes singles way more manageable,” Jadun said. “You just have to split the singles rather than going 4-2. So, for us to be up 1-0 gives the guys a little energy and it also keeps the crowd into it.”

That energy helped Max Sheldon win his singles match against Kentucky’s No. 79 Charlelie Cosnet, 6-4, 6-4, adding another point on the board for the home team. On the next court over, Baris fought back and forth to the last tiebreaker point to win against Antoine Ghibaudo 6-1, 7-6 (8-6).

“I think more than anything, it’s kind of a confirmation of what we’re going to be doing this year,” Baris said about the impact of the win for the program. “You kind of go into this match with some expectations, definitely, the belief that we can win, but just seeing our level the way that the match went, it really just gave us a backing of we are a top 10, top five, and want to be a No. 1 team.”

Junior Aristotelis Thanos took the first set from UK’s No. 39 Jaden Weekes but fell in his second set to send the pair to a tiebreaker. Pushing to the very end, Thanos clinched the fifth point, clinching the Spartans’ victory.

In other matches after the win was clinched, Kentucky’s Jack Loutit topped Forbes 6-3, 7-6 (12-10). Alazmeh was the final Spartan to put another point on the board for the team. He downed Martin Breysach in a back-and-forth match, 6-4, 4-6, 6-4.

In his first match as a Spartan, Radjenovic lost a close match to Eli Stephenson 6-2, 7-6 (10-7), 4-6.