No. 12 Kentucky men’s tennis hosted the Lexington Regional of the 2025 Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Kickoff Weekend, sweeping both Santa Clara and No. 20 Arizona State 4-0 to claim a spot in the ITA Indoor National Championship.
Kentucky kicked off its dominant weekend by grabbing a pair of wins to take the doubles point and a 1-0 lead over Santa Clara on Friday.
Sophomore phenom Jack Loutit helped the Cats pick up their first singles point of the regional, tallying a bagel en route to taking down Lukas Maskow in straight sets 6-0, 6-1. With this victory, Loutit moved to an impressive 4-0 on the season.
Louisville native Eli Stephenson, who also improved to 4-0, brought the Kentucky lead to 3-0 after making easy work of Luca Bluett in straight sets 6-4, 6-3.
For the winning point, ITA’s No. 1 ranked newcomer Antoine Ghibaudo tallied his first collegiate singles victory over Alexander Watanabe Eriksson by a final score of 6-3, 7-5. Earlier in the day, Ghibaudo claimed his first collegiate victory in a doubles win with Charlelie Cosnet over the Broncos 6-3.
In the championship round on Saturday, Kentucky ousted No. 20 Arizona State, but it was not as easy. The Cats couldn’t make it out of doubles unscathed and the Sun Devils took match one 7-5. Despite the deficit, Kentucky won two crucial matches to claim the doubles point and go up 1-0.
Kentucky had a slow singles start as well, losing the first set on all courts, but eventually brought each match back to a third set.
Adding to his rapidly increasing win total, Ghibaudo extended Kentucky’s lead to 2-0, knocking off Bor Artnak 1-6, 6-4, 6-1. Artnak got out to an assertive start with a convincing win in set one, but Ghibaudo flipped the script and came roaring back in the second set, capping off his victory in a dominant third set.
No. 39 ranked Jaden Weekes also dropped set one to his opponent, Mathis Bondaz, 6-4, but took over to win both sets two and three by a score of 6-2 and widened the gap to 3-0.
In a back-and-forth championship-clinching match, the Cats’ Loutit fought off the Devils’ Nicola Cigna 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 to punch a ticket to the ITA Indoor National Championship.
Kentucky became the first team in the nation to win its Kickoff Weekend Regional and will host Memphis on Thursday, Jan. 30, at 5 p.m. Looking further, Kentucky will compete in the 2025 ITA Division-I Men’s National Team Indoor Championship for the 24th time in program history from February 14-18 in Dallas and Waco, Texas.