College tennis is primarily a spring sport. The keyword? Primarily.
The fall season is typically viewed as the offseason — a tune-up period. But Clemson men’s tennis is doing more than just tuning up: they are turning up.
The fall tennis campaign consists mostly of individual tournaments, a stark contrast to the team-style matches of the spring season. These fall tournaments are almost always played away from the comfort of the Duckworth Family Tennis Facility. They also happen to contain a selection of only the best players in the country.
This week, head coach Brandon Wagner had one eye on Montreal, Canada, and the other on Chapel Hill, North Carolina. In Canada, Marko Mesarovic turned in a quarterfinal appearance, winning four straight matches and earning a resume-stamping win on the way. Likewise, the quota was the quarterfinal in Chapel Hill as Henrik Bladelius tore it up in singles play.
This weekend, the Tigers’ racquets were strung just right.
As a qualifier, Mesarovic had to win two straight matches before his name was written into the ITF M25 Montreal bracket. He did so without dropping a set.
After qualifying, life didn’t get any easier for the junior. In the first round, he drew Gabi Adrian Boitan, the No. 2 seed of the 32-player event.
Boitan is ATP-ranked No. 334. The Association of Tennis Professionals is a global ranking, not a collegiate or national one. Formerly a Baylor Bear, Boitan peaked at No. 5 in the collegiate singles rankings in 2022.
Mesarovic, currently outside the top 125 college singles players, dismantled him 6-2, 6-3, for the highest-ranked win of his career. In the next round, Alafia Ayeni retired to grant Mesarovic a trip to the quarterfinals, where he would fall to the eventual runner-up, Taha Baadi.
Meanwhile, pre-qualified Swedish freshman Bladelius was leading the charge back in the states at the ITA East Sectional Championships. After advancing to the second round in straight sets, Bladelius found himself down a set to Virginia’s Stiles Brockett, yet he captained a remarkable comeback, winning 4-6, 6-4, 6-3.
In the quarters, North Carolina’s Roan Jones, ranked No. 38 in collegiate singles, gave Bladelius a taste of his own medicine as he came back from a set down to win 4-6, 6-1, 6-2.
Edoardo Chérié Lignière and Noa Vukadin also competed in Chapel Hill with fewer results to show for it, but that’s the beauty of college tennis. Even in an individual sport, one man’s — or two men’s — success is felt by the whole team.
With a successful weekend now in the rearview mirror, one Tiger, Romain Gales, sets his sights on a milestone tournament: the NCAA singles championships. As the only Clemson qualifier — and the first to do so since 2013 — Gales awaits the release of the bracket on Saturday at 6 p.m., with play set to begin on Nov. 18 in Orlando, Florida.
