The Ohio State men’s tennis team has been one of the top in the country for many years now, but it is still yet to win its first NCAA tournament. With 18 consecutive Big Ten championships, and 16 total conference tournament titles, the Buckeyes are hungry to take the next step and win it all.
The Buckeyes won their first three matches in the 2024 tournament, beating Cleveland State, Oklahoma State and Mississippi State to fight their way to Stillwater, Oklahoma, where every match from the quarterfinals and on will take place.
“We’re excited to be here, and it’s always a long road trying to get to the final site, so we’re lucky to be here,” Tucker said. “There’s a lot of great teams that are sitting at home that would like to be here. But there’s going to be no easy outs, and every match is going to be tough. We’re going to have to be ready at 11 a.m. (CDT) on Thursday because the doubles point is awfully important.”
Thursday is when the Buckeyes match up against No. 8 Columbia in the quarterfinals now that only the top-eight-ranked teams remain. They are eager to try to put an end to that drought as the No. 1-ranked team in the country.
The Buckeyes come in with a 33-1 record this season and five seniors in their regular lineup in Justin Boulais, Robert Cash, Cannon Kingsley, Andrew Lutschaunig and JJ Tracy. Redshirt sophomore Jack Anthrop and sophomore Alexander Bernard – who is undefeated in singles this year – are the other two who regularly play.
Tucker believes each of the players he sends out are all pretty equal with each other, something he believes can give them an advantage going into the final matches of the year.
“That’s the beauty of our team, and that’s why we’ve been successful. We have six guys that are all pretty darn even,” Tucker said. “We’re pretty deep, and we won the national indoor with our depth. That changes because you go outside. We’ve been outside in some windy conditions and played a lot of tennis, but it always gets a little trickier at this time of the year.”
The Buckeyes came out on top in February in the ITA National Team Indoor Championship, beating TCU and Virginia – two teams left in the NCAA tournament – on their way to a title. No. 2 Texas was the only team to beat Ohio State this year, doing so on March 10, 5-2, its only loss of the entire season.
Now the close-to-perfect Buckeyes have no room for error anymore, needing just three more wins to take home their first-ever NCAA championship. If they beat Columbia on Thursday, the semifinals would take place on Saturday at noon, and the championship would be Sunday at 5 p.m.
If you enjoyed this story, you will love Buckeye Sports Bulletin, the newspaper “For The Buckeye Fan Who Needs To Know More” since 1981. For four free trial issues of Buckeye Sports Bulletin with no obligation, click here. Your trial subscription will also include our big Football Preview Issue as well as free access to our website.
