Clemson’s most exciting sport is back.

No, it’s not football. It’s not basketball, either.

Pick up your rackets because Clemson men’s tennis is quietly and rapidly becoming one of the most compelling shows on campus. Trust me, you don’t want to miss this.

For the first time since 2015, Clemson squeezed its way into the top 25 of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s preseason rankings, released in early January. Ranked at No. 25, the Tigers may still be underrated.

Last year, Clemson qualified for the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2014. The Tigers didn’t just qualify, though. In the first round of the tournament, Clemson left no doubt. The team swept Quinnipiac 4-0 before eventually falling to Columbia in the round of 32. Quinnipiac was the 12th team to be swept by Clemson in the 2025 season.

It was a great season, but by the time the fall came around, head coach Brandon Wagner had only retained half of his 12-man roster.

Wagner plugged these holes with five freshmen. With new faces in the locker room, the fall season begged the question: How strong is the talent?

Pretty strong, it turned out.

Freshmen Manuel Plunger and Henrik Bladelius competed and won the Blue Gray National Tennis Classic in September. Bladelius took home tournament MVP honors, but the message to everyone else was clear: these guys can play.

Plunger was later crowned champion at the ITF Manzanillo Open.

Matisse Farzam, another new addition, found chemistry with junior Marko Mesarovic. They won the Battle on the Plains tournament at Auburn in October.

But it wasn’t just the new faces that were raising heads.

One of the premier storylines of the fall was senior Romain Gales. Taking on a leadership role for the team, Gales led by example. He became Clemson’s first ITA Regional champion in 37 years.

Gales was just getting started, though. His triumph earned him a bid to the NCAA singles championships. In the first round, he dramatically defeated TCU’s Duncan Chan. Chan, the No. 6-ranked singles player in the country, fell to Gales in a high-stakes, third-set tiebreaker.

In the next round, he beat Mississippi State’s No. 54-ranked Benito Sanchez Martinez in straight sets.

Gales’ run was stopped by Columbia’s Michael Zheng, the eventual NCAA singles tournament champion and No. 1-ranked singles player in the country. But Gales’ Cinderella run into the round of 16 earned him All-American honors and some profound respect among the nation’s best.

“It’s more about, you know, seeing that I was able to be consistent. In every tournament that I played, being able to compete … with some of the best players in college,” Gales said.

Meanwhile, Gales’ teammates were holding their own in other tournaments. Sophomore Nathan Pitts won five straight matches to win the UTR Sports College Circuit at Furman. Edoardo Chérié Lignière won the first UTR Professional Tennis Tour tournament, and junior Noa Vukadin won the second one.

Through the fall, Wagner’s plan was clear: get his team on the court.

“We all played more than 20 matches, which is a lot,” Vukadin said. “We are very strong as a unit, and we are very mature.”

Last year, the team’s identity was largely defined by its doubles pairings. All-ACC pairing Vukadin and Maxwell Smith went 19-6 as a team, finishing the year ranked No. 28 in doubles. Gales and Max Damm found similar success, finishing the season ranked No. 54 in doubles.

This year, with the absence of Smith and Damm, early signs indicate that Vukadin and Gales might be teaming up in a new-look doubles lineup.

The team traveled to Boca Raton, Florida, on Sunday to compete in the Hidden Dual — a tune-up ahead of its first official match. The team notched 21 total wins, but Wagner seemed to be experimenting with some lineups.

“We have to figure a lot of stuff out that we didn’t have to worry about last year. That’s also part of it, but I also am just trying to be there for the team, you know, trying to be a great leader,” Vukadin said.

In the team’s first three matches, the Tigers will face two top-20 opponents: South Carolina and Michigan State. In February, the team matches up against No. 14-ranked Central Florida and, consequently, former teammate Wissam Abderrahman. Just a couple of days after that, the team travels to No. 1-ranked Wake Forest for the beginning of a tough ACC stretch. March brings matchups against No. 9 NC State, No. 22 Florida State, No. 17 Duke, No. 15 California and No. 4 Stanford.

“We are going to see. We are going to be tested. We have a great schedule coming up; the non-conference schedule is very good. We set high goals for ourselves, you know, so if we want to achieve those goals for sure, we are going to be tested at the highest level. Our identity is going to show up,” Vukadin said.

The team kicks off the year at home against LSU on Friday at 5 p.m. Don’t miss it.