BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s tennis team was ranked as the No. 14 team in the nation on Tuesday as the WingspanBank.com Collegiate Tennis Rankings were released by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association.
“The team worked very hard in each of the fall tournaments,” said LSU head coach Jeff Brown. “They all know that this season is going to be tough, and that they are going to have to step up and fill the shoes of the three seniors that graduated last year.”
The Tigers only dropped two spots from No. 12 to No. 14 since last season’s final rankings despite losing three of their six starters to graduation. LSU’s No. 1 singles player, Michal Chmela, the Tigers’ No. 2 singles player Tom Hand, and LSU’s No. 6 player Ed Rubin were the departing seniors.
“We’re rebuilding the team a little bit this season to maintain our position in the top 10,” said Brown. “We have some extremely talented freshmen on the team, and our guys are practicing very hard and are improving every day.”
Helping the Tigers maintain their top-15 ranking in fall competition was senior Ajay Ramaswami, as well as the emergence of freshmen Bryan Fisher and Sebastian Rutka. Ramaswami compiled a 14-4 record during the fall tournaments, while Fisher ended 11-5, and Rutka finished with a 9-7 mark.
The Southeastern Conference accounted for seven of the top-25 ranked teams in the nation. Leading the charge was Tennessee at No. 2, then No. 7 Georgia, No. 9 Florida, and No. 11 Mississippi. After LSU at No. 14, Mississippi State was the 17th-ranked team, while Auburn came in at No. 25.
Stanford was the No. 1 ranked team in the nation after receiving 42 of the possible 43 first-place votes. Georgia received the remaining first-place vote.
The LSU men’s tennis team will next be in action January 18-21, at the SEC Indoor Championships in Atlanta, Ga.
NCAA Division I Men’s Team Rankings – Top 25
Team Votes
1. Stanford (42) 2400
2. Tennessee 2356
3. UCLA 2304
4. Duke 2285
5. Texas A&M 2247
6. TCU 2200
7. Georgia (1) 2186
8. Illinois 2161
9. Florida 2148
10. Virginia Commonwealth 2115
11. Mississippi 2107
12. Pepperdine 2097
13. Southern California 1956
14. LSU 1937
15. Baylor 1933
16. SMU 1911
17. Mississippi State 1910
18. Minnesota 1890
19. San Diego State 1811
20. Texas 1771
21. Fresno State 1768
22. Miami (Fla.) 1764
23. South Alabama 1738
24. California 1646
25. Auburn 1573