Men's Tennis Opens 2026-27 Season This Week

Nour Fathalla, PUR | Photo courtesy of Purdue Athletics

ROSEMONT, Ill. – The 2026-27 men's tennis season begins this week for Big Ten schools as individuals compete in singles and doubles at various non-scoring tournaments. The main event will be the ITA All-American Championships (Sept. 19-27) in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The tournament will draw some of the nation's top players with automatic berths into the NCAA Tournament on the line.

The ITA preseason singles rankings finds 17 Big Ten players ranked among the top 125:

No. 4 – Max Dahlin, Michigan
No. 7 – Aidan Kim, Ohio State
No. 10 – Matthew Forbes, Ohio State
No. 12 – Preston Stearns, Ohio State
No. 22 – Emon van Loben Sels, UCLA
No. 27 – Alex Okonkwo, Ohio State
No. 29 – Spencer Johnson, UCLA
No. 40 – Nathan Trouve, USC
No. 47 – Maxwell Exsted, USC
No. 49 – Rudy Quan, UCLA
No. 51 – Nikita Filin, Ohio State
No. 55 – Sam Landau, Indiana
No. 58 – Bryce Nakashima, Ohio State
No. 63 – Nour Fathalla, Purdue
No. 96 – Denis Petak, Ohio State
No. 106 – Andrin Casanova, USC
No. 124 – Victor Lilov, Ohio State

In addition, Ohio State has a pair of players listed on the ITA Newcomer Rankings in No. 11 Denis Petak and No. 19 Victor Lilov.

On the doubles side, 10 Big Ten tandems are ranked in the top 90:

No. 3 – Brandon Carpico/Nikita Filin, Ohio State
No. 13 – Spencer Johnson/Emon van Loben Sels, UCLA
No. 15 – Aidan Kim/Bryce Nakashima, Ohio State
No. 34 – Max Dahlin/Evan Burnett, Michigan
No. 37 – Matthew Forbes/Alex Okonkwo, Ohio State
No. 43 – David Bakonyi/Zach Viiala, Illinois
No. 44 – Denis Petak/Ilija Palavestra, Ohio State
No. 49 – Maxwell Exsted/Nathan Trouve, USC
No. 51 – Preston Stearns/Alex Fuchs, Ohio State
No. 84 – Sam Landau/Braeden Gelletich, Indiana

The fall tennis season culminates with the NCAA Individual Championships, to be held November 17-22 in Athens, Georgia. Team dual matches and conference play take place during the second half of the season, which begins in January.