BATON ROUGE — The 24th-ranked LSU women’s tennis team will face the third-ranked Georgia Lady Bulldogs Friday in a Southeastern Conference showdown.
“Georgia has an outstanding team this season,” said LSU head coach Tony Minnis. “Our players are going to have to step it up a notch in singles play, and if they can do that then it will be a really close match.”
The Lady Tigers have a 7-3 overall record and are 0-2 in conference play, while the Lady Bulldogs have a 6-1 overall record and are 2-0 in the SEC. LSU is in the midst of a two-match losing streak with losses to fourth-ranked Florida, 7-2, and 19th-ranked Florida State, 5-4.
In Georgia’s last match, the Lady Bulldogs were victorious over the 18th-ranked Tennessee Volunteers by the score of 8-1.
Georgia was also ranked third in the nation last season when the Lady Tigers travelled to Athens for the matchup. The Lady Bulldogs handily defeated the Lady Tigers, 8-1, to hand LSU its fifth loss of the 1999 season.
“Last year at Georgia we didn’t play well at all,” Minnis said. “We came out flat, and when you do that on the road against a good team it is hard to pull off a win. I believe that we will play much better tomorrow.”
The Lady Tigers have two players ranked among the Top 100 in the nation, while Georgia has five. LSU’s Bruna Colosio is No. 16 and Ana Paula Mores is No. 64. The Lady Bulldog’s ranked players are Esther Knox (No. 7), Aarthi Venkatesan (No. 8), Lori Greg (No. 11), Kelly Baskin (No. 65), and Anne Nguyen (No. 89).
The 24th-ranked LSU Lady Tigers will host the third-ranked Georgia Lady Bulldogs Friday at 2 p.m. at the “Dub” Robinson Tennis Stadium.