Last week, Clemson men’s tennis traveled to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to compete in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association All-American Championship. Players Noa Vukadin and Maxwell Smith proved why they are a top-five doubles team while also making a strong case to be ranked in singles.
To earn a bid to the main draw, Clemson players had to get through pre-qualifying singles and qualifying singles without losing a match — but it quickly became apparent that the Tigers were up to the challenge.
Of the 64 players that qualified for the singles main draw, only nine were unranked — one of which was Clemson’s very own Maxwell Smith. Smith marched through the pre-qualifying and qualifying stages as he won five straight matches, earning a bid to the main draw. Unfortunately, Ohio State’s William Jansen, ranked No. 35, would end Smith’s fairytale run in the first round, but the loss couldn’t diminish what Smith had accomplished.
The senior from Daniel Island, South Carolina, beat three ranked singles players on the way to his five-match win streak, raising questions about his status as an unranked singles player.
Smith’s doubles partner, Vukadin, was simultaneously making waves in singles play as he won three straight matches without dropping a set before he inevitably lost to No. 56-ranked Carl Emil Overbeck.
Vukadin and Smith were ranked No. 5 in doubles by the ITA in August — a ranking that earned the duo an automatic bid to main draw doubles. After an Ohio State player knocked Smith out of the singles main draw, Smith and Vukadin drew a chance for revenge against Ohio State’s Aiden Kim and Alexander Bernard, ranked No. 19 in doubles.
The match required a third set, with a 10-point tiebreaker ultimately deciding between the Tigers and Buckeyes. Despite losing seven straight points prior to the tiebreak, Vukadin and Smith found their groove when it mattered most, triumphing 10-8 to advance to round two. However, they found themselves on the wrong side of a third-set tiebreak in round two, losing to eventual finalists Marko Miladinovic and Oskar Brostrom Poulsen.
Other Clemson competitors included Wissam Abderrahman, Romain Gales and Marko Mesarovic. After receiving a bye in pre-qualifying singles, Abderrahman fell in the first round of qualifying singles as Illinois’ William Mroz got the best of him in a three-set battle. In the pre-qualifying singles draw, Mesarovic and Gales were both victorious in their first-round matches before falling in the second round.
After their impressive showing in Oklahoma, the team was welcomed back to Clemson by the chaos of Hurricane Helene. The players will have some rest as they await play in the Mercer Invitational in Macon, Georgia, beginning on Oct. 4.
