BATON ROUGE — LSU sophomore Jesse Smatt became the first Tiger tennis player to be named the Southeastern Conference Player of the Week this week for his performance a week ago.
Smatt was undefeated in singles and doubles during the week to help LSU to wins over No. 14 Ole Miss and Arkansas. He defeated the Rebels 56th-ranked Anders Stenman for his best win of the week.
“Jesse has always been a very intense competitor,” said LSU coach Jeff Brown. “In the past few weeks. he has begun to play smarter and that combined with his competitive nature has produced good results.”
As a team, LSU dropped one spot in the latest Intercollegiate Tennis Association Poll to No. 10. The Tigers, winners of eight straight, remained No. 5 in the Daily Tennis Coaches Poll.
“We feel like we are in good shape right now despite the drop in the one poll. Our goal, as it has been all year, is to be near the top of the polls at the end of the season and we have a long time to go before that happens,” said Brown.
The ITA poll uses a computer formula based on wins over other ranked opponents to determine the rankings while the Daily Tennis Poll is a vote among the nation’s coaches.