DeKALB, Ill. – Northern Illinois University men's tennis head coach René Vidal on Tuesday announced the addition of transfers Lorenzo Messina and Nikola Puntaric to the Huskie roster for 2025-26. 
 
Messina, a native of Rome, Italy, comes to NIU after one season at the University of North Florida, while Ljubljana, Slovenia product Puntaric spent his freshman season of 2024-25 at the University of Tulsa.
 
"We are extremely excited about both Nikola and Lorenzo, not only because of their competitive tennis experience, but also because of their character and leadership qualities," Vidal said. "It's a great time for Huskie Tennis and we are looking forward to having a very successful 2025-26 season."
 
Messina saw action in 11 matches during the spring season at North Florida, where he posted a 4-3 record at No. 6 singles in conference play.  He saw action in 19 doubles matches with five different partners before teaming up with Gianluca Filoramo to go 7-5 while playing at all three positions in the doubles line-up.
 
Prior to his time at UNF, Messina achieved a U-18 ranking of No. 357 from the International Tennis Federation (ITF) with a national ranking of 2.4.  The Italian Tennis Federation (FIT) listed him as an athlete of national interest from 2020-24. 
 
Puntaric became a mainstay in the Golden Hurricane line-up as a freshman as he saw action in 21 dual matches, playing primarily at No. 4 singles. He also saw time in every spot in the line-up except No. 1 and No. 6 during the season. 
 
As a junior player in Slovenia, Puntaric earned a career best UTR (Universal Tennis Rating) of 12.43 and was ranked as high as 764 in the ITF men's rankings with a top ATP doubles ranking of 1902.  
 
Both players come into the Huskie program as sophomores, where they will join eight returning student-athletes on the 2025-26 roster.
 
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