Alabama's Filip Planinsek wins NCAA men's tennis singles national championship title

The National Championship trophy case inside the Mal M. Moore Athletic Facility is being added to.

Alabama junior Filip Planinsek made Crimson Tide men's tennis history on Saturday as the Hoce, Slovenia, native mounted a two-set come-from-behind victory over Columbia's Michael Zheng to capture the NCAA Singles Championship national championship title. Planinsek took sets two and three by scores of 6-3 and 6-2 respectively after dropping the first set 6-7 (4).

It is the first NCAA singles tournament national championship title in Alabama program history.

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Planinsek — who defeated No. 9 Ozan Baris on Friday in the semifinals by taking each of the last five points in the tiebreaker set — finished with four aces during Saturday's national championship set at Oklahoma State.

As noted by Alabama's media relations department following Planinsek's win in the semifinals on Friday, it was just the second time the Alabama men's tennis program has had a player compete for a national title at the individual level. The first time came in 2019 when Mazen Osama and Patrick Kaukovalta finished as runner-up in the NCAA doubles.

On his national championship run, Planinsek only dropped three combined sets. Here's a full round-by-round breakout of who Planinsek beat to win the national championship:

Note: Set results are in parentheses

• Round of 64: Defeated No. 188 Jonas Hartenstein from North Florida (6-2, 6-1)
• Round of 32: Defeated No. 17 Cannon Kingsley from Ohio State (7-6 (5), 6-1)
• Round of 16: Defeated No. 5 Micah Braswell from Texas (6-4, 6-4)
• Quarterfinals: Defeated No. 15 Cooper Williams from Harvard (6-4, 1-6, 6-4)
• Semifinals: Defeated No. 9 Ozan Baris from Michigan State (7-5, 5-7, 7-6(6))
• Championship: Defeated No. 23 Michael Zheng (6-7(4), 6-3, 6-2)

Look: Greg Byrne, Patrick Murphy congratulate Filip Planinsek on national title

Shortly after winning his national title, Alabama's Director of Athletics Greg Byrne and softball coach Patrick Murphy went to X (formerly known as Twitter) to congratulate Planinsek on his accomplishment.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Alabama's Filip Planinsek wins NCAA men's tennis singles national championship title