n SEC champs deal with

destination in first-round blowout of Alcorn State.

Daily Journal Staff reports

BATON ROUGE - Looks like the Ole Miss men's tennis team is over the initial disappointment over its NCAA Tournament destination.

Two weeks after being shipped to Baton Rouge for the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament, despite leading the nation in attendance for the eighth straight season, the Rebels opened the tournament Friday by dispatching Alcorn State 4-0.

For the No. 2 Rebels, the win was their 18th straight on the season.

Ole Miss (25-2) wasted no time in doubles as the Rebels' Kalle Norberg and Otto Sauer defeated Alcorn State's Alejandro Dominguez and Yanick Shearron-Hawkins 8-0 on court three.

The Rebels moved ahead 1-0 in the match as they clinched the doubles point on court two when Devin Britton and Tucker Vorster beat the Braves' Anton Krutkin and Alexandr Lidzar 8-1.

In singles, freshman Chris Thiemann defeated Rajpurohit 6-0, 6-1 on court six to make it 2-0, and then the Rebels increased the lead to 3-0 when 40th-ranked Norberg beat Lidzar 6-2, 6-0 at No. 3.

The Rebels clinched the match on court five when Marcel Thiemann knocked off the Braves' Alejandro Dominguez 6-3, 6-0.

With the victory, Ole Miss equaled its greatest win total in school history. The Rebels will try to eclipse that mark today against the winner of LSU/Rice.

Women to face Georgia Tech

The 21st-ranked Ole Miss women's tennis team defeated Denver 4-1 in Atlanta Friday to advance to the NCAA second round for the first time since 2001.

The Rebels (15-9) got on the board first by taking the doubles point. The freshman duo of Abigail Guthrie and Gabriela Rangel downed Denver's Julia Bauregger and Ute Schnoy 8-2 at No. 2 doubles.

Nijssen won her seventh match in a row, downing Annette Aksdal 6-1, 6-2 at No. 2 singles to give the Rebels a 2-0 lead.

The Rebels closed out the Pioneers with wins on courts four and five from Guthrie and Rangel. Guthrie downed Julia Bauregger 6-2, 6-1 at four, and then Rangel won in three sets against Kyla Iwinski, 6-3, 1-6, 6-1 to clinch the match.

Ole Miss will face Georgia Tech today at noon.