STARKVILLE — Malte Stropp has been waiting for this moment all season.
Stropp endured the awkwardness of being a shy kid from Germany in a new place, withstood the weird looks when he arrived in the United States, and is looking forward to being the star of “the show.”
That event will be the Southeastern Conference men’s tennis tournament, which begins Thursday at the A.J. Pitts Tennis Centre in Starkville.
Stropp, one of the more energetic and enthusiastic players on the Mississippi State University roster, will perform in front of a
packed crowd this weekend in an attempt to help MSU win a championship on its home court.
“We are all so excited, and we want to win not only for the seniors, but (also) for the fact this is the best team Mississippi State has had in probably 15 years for this event,” Stropp said. “We have a great chance to win it all.”
MSU coach Per Nilsson said Tuesday that Stropp will move up to No. 2 singles as the back-to-back SEC Western Division champions prepare to host the conference tournament for the fifth time in school history, and first time since 2000.
“The goal for this program is to stay in the top 10 (nationally),” Nilsson said. “Malte at No. 2 helps us do that. We used to stay in that top-10 ranking as a team all the time, and having players like Malte make that so much easier to do.”
MSU hopes to ride the emotional lift it is expected to get from Stropp, top player Artem Illyushin, and senior George Coupland to earn a chance to play host to a NCAA tournament regional. At No. 9 nationally, MSU also will try to have success this weekend to get one of the eight national seeds for the NCAA tournament.
“Everyone has a goal in their mind to get a (championship) ring from this NCAA tournament,” Stropp said. “That’s what we dream about, and that’s what we want to be able to accomplish this season.”
Stropp, who is No. 67 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association rankings, is 10-3 at home this season. He said initially he wasn’t sure how well his game, which he developed on clay and carpet courts in Germany, would translate to the faster, hardcourt surfaces in the United States.
“We work with him all the time to get him out of his old ways of sitting back and hitting balls from the base line,” Nilsson said. “The key is when we recruited him he was a thin, 145-pound player, and now he’s a tank. He’s a big boy, and when he plays the right way, he physically overwhelms everybody.”
Stropp’s personality may serve him the best on Super Bulldog Weekend. After winning the SEC Freshman of the Year award last year, Stropp went back to Germany a new person. He returned to Starkville a more confident, outspoken, and excitable player. His on-court action have attracted more than a few in his disapproving looks.
“You get pointed out as this crazy guy doing all these different things because nobody on the professional tour behaves that way anymore,” Stropp said. “Everyone else has this, ‘whatever’ attitude, and then the MSU guys stick out in the international tournaments, no doubt.”
Nilsson immediately told Stropp this summer to find another club in Germany to train at or to come back to the U.S. early so he wouldn’t develop bad habits.
“We told him these buddies of yours are making fun of how hard you go after every point aren’t going to help you become a professional player one day,” Nilsson said. “It did take us a while to figure this out and get him back on track this past summer.”
After the phone call, Stropp took off in his individual tournaments overseas. The momentum carried into the fall, when he won six of his first eight matches.
“The offseason was so key because I learned I had to practice without the constant watching by my coaches, so I had to be responsible for my game,” Stropp said.
Stropp plans to turn professional after he is finished at MSU. He hopes to continue to play with the same energy of former professional players John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors and to draw energy from the crowd.
“Before I came to college, I was such a quiet guy that regarded tennis as an individual sport, but as soon as I got here I bought in on supporting the team like any other sport,” Stropp said. “In the beginning, I felt weird and it didn’t feel natural, but now I want to play that way.”
MSU will be the third seed in the SEC tournament. It will face the winner of the match Thursday between the University of Alabama and the University of Tennessee at 11 a.m. Friday.
“When I took over this program, they asked me if I wanted to host this event or had any reservations about it because our facility isn’t the biggest in the world with just six courts,” Nilsson said. “I didn’t hesitate (and said) ‘yes’ because it’s such a home-court advantage for us. We have to use that this weekend, especially since it’s the biggest weekend on this campus.”
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