LOUISVILLE — The LSU men’s tennis team will put it’s No. 1 national ranking on the line this weekend in the Rolex National Indoor Team Championships.
“We are looking forward to competing,” said LSU coach Jeff Brown. “We have had a long layoff and we are excited about getting back into the season.”
LSU (3-0), who held on to its No. 1 ranking for the third consecutive week this week, will face Southern Cal in the first round of the prestigious event.
“USC is a traditional power that brings a very talented team to the National Indoors as they always do,” said Brown. “We will have our hands full.”
Making its 14th appearance in the tournament LSU has never won the event, with its highest finish coming in 1988. The Tigers lost in the final that year to Southern Cal.
However, this is the first time the Tigers will enter the event as the No. 1 ranked team in the nation.
“I have told the team to realize that when you have a high ranking, you will be a target for teams. But, we always feel that teams are gunning for us with the great tradition that LSU has had. We are just going out and competing as hard as we can and we will let the chips fall where they may,” said Brown.
The tournament will use an experimental format this season for the dual matches. In doubles, a team can earn two points by sweeping each of the three matches. Normal scoring awards a team one point for doubles with a best-of-three format.
Singles matches will also be slightly altered. In order to shorten matches, any individual match that is forced to a third-set will be decided by a match tiebreaker (first player to 10 points, winning by two).
“At one point or another we will have a match decided by a tiebreaker and those can go either way,” said Brown. “We have to be very prepared and composed to handle this new format.”