MSU men's tennis outlasts Ohio State to claim first Big Ten tournament title since 1967

After finishing the regular season tied at the top of the Big Ten standings, Michigan State and Ohio State met again in the tournament finals, in an epic match that stretched across hours, delays, tension - and decades of history - before the Spartans prevailed, earning their first conference tournament championship since 1967 late Saturday evening in Ojai (and early Sunday morning in East Lansing).

By the time the final point was struck, it was just before 3 a.m. Eastern, nearly seven hours after the match began, with weather delays interrupting rhythm and momentum and forcing both teams to repeatedly reset, but none of it was enough to stop the Spartans.

The challenge of breaking through in a conference long controlled by Ohio State should not be understated. The Buckeyes are a program that entered the night having won 14 of the last 19 tournament titles and appearing in its 22nd consecutive final.

Michigan State did not just win a championship, it took it from the program that has defined the event for two decades.

The Spartans set the tone early by securing the doubles point - which ultimately proved to be the winning point - with Matthew Forbes and Ozan Baris leading the way at No. 1 doubles, followed by another composed performance from Taym Al-Azmeh and Mitchell Sheldon to give Michigan State the initial edge.

From there, the Spartans needed to split the six singles matches to clinch the victory. Singles was a grind of individual battles layered into a team score that kept shifting and tightening throughout the evening.

Baris clinched a straight-set win at No. 3 singles, and Al-Azmeh delivered one of the more important swings of the night with a three-set comeback victory at No. 5.

Nothing about the finish came easy, though, as delays pushed the match deeper into the night.

Eventually, two courts remained - and everything rested on the final moments of two matches. When Aristotelis Thanos fell in a tightly contested three-set battle at No. 1 singles, the overall score moved to 3-3, leaving the championship to be decided on a single court.

Fortunately, that court belonged to Forbes, who won a three-set fight that included a second-set slip and a final-set tiebreak, with Forbes ultimately closing out a 6-2, 5-7, 7-6 (7-3) win to secure the title.

It is one thing to win a championship point. It is another to do it after hours of waiting, stopping, restarting, and carrying the understanding that one match, one tiebreak, one stretch of points will define the outcome.

MSU head coach Harry Judan made sure his Spartans were ready for the moment. And they delivered.

Harry Judan coaching his team on April 17, 2026, in East Lansing. Photo credit: Sydney Padgett/Spartans Illustrated

The broader context only adds to it. This was not a one-off result against Ohio State. Earlier this season, the Spartans went into Columbus and ended the Buckeyes' 49-match conference win streak while handing Ohio State their first home Big Ten loss since 2003, a signal at the time that MSU might just be able to make this season special.

This finish confirmed it.

Programs do not erase decades of history in a single night, but they can change how the current chapter is written, and Michigan State did that in Ojai by proving it can go toe-to-toe with the league’s standard and finish the job when it mattered most.

The wait lasted 59 years. The final point took seven hours to arrive. And when it did, it belonged to Michigan State.