BATON ROUGE — The LSU women’s tennis team begins play in the 11th Annual Coors Light Lady Lobo Invitational Friday morning on the campus of New Mexico University.
This weekend’s tournament marks the opening competition for the Lady Tigers this millennium as well as the last preseason event for the team until their season opener January 29 against Centenary.
“We’re really looking forward to this weekend’s event,” said head coach Tony Minnis. “It has been over two-months since the fall season ended and the girls can’t wait to get back on the court and play competitively. I feel that we have done a good job of staying in shape and practicing over the holidays, so we should play well this weekend.”
Also competing in the New Mexico Invitational are 27th ranked New Mexico, No. 66 Colorado, and New Mexico State. LSU is coming into the event ranked 22nd in the nation and two of the tournament’s four ranked players are Lady Tigers. Bruna Colosio is No. 20 in the nation and Ana Paula Mores is ranked 37th.
New Mexico’s Ana Friganovic and Natalla Alekhova are the other two ranked players participating in the tournament. Friganovic is ranked 44th and Alekhova is No. 100. Colorado and New Mexico State don’t have any players ranked among the top-100, but both teams are deep and talented in all six starting spots.
“These are some good teams that we’re going up against this weekend,” said Minnis. “Both New Mexico and Colorado are ranked, so it’s going to be an extremely hard fought and competitive tournament.”
The 11th Annual Coors Light Lady Lobo Invitational will begin Friday, January 14 at 9 a.m. in Albuquerque, NM.