BATON ROUGE — LSU’s 14th-ranked men’s tennis team and the 23rd-ranked Lady Tiger women’s squad will each open their 2001 dual-match season on Saturday as they host a quadruple header in the W.T. “Dub” Robinson Tennis Stadium beginning at 10 a.m.
“We’re excited to get the season underway,” said LSU men’s tennis coach Jeff Brown. “We’re excited to play some dual matches and to get some experience for our new guys, and we’re really looking forward to playing in our newly-renovated stadium.”
The LSU men’s team will square off against Southern at 10 a.m. on the side courts of “Dub” Robinson Stadium, while the Lady Tigers simultaneously take on Centenary in the main stadium. At 1 p.m., the Tigers host their second match of day as they also face Centenary. In the final match of the quadruple header, the LSU women’s team will battle West Florida at 3 p.m.
“This is a good test for our team,” said LSU women’s tennis coach Tony Minnis. “Everybody’s hungry to start playing again, and West Florida and Centenary will both be tough opponents. We just have to come out and take care of business. I’m curious to see how mature our team will be this year.”
The LSU tennis teams both look to embark on yet another impressive dual-match season in 2001. The Tigers are coming off of their sixth-straight NCAA sweet-16 appearance and a 20-6 overall record, while the Lady Tigers finished with a 16-11 record last season and also qualified for the sweet 16.
The LSU women’s team returns five of its six starters from last season and can boast the No. 44-ranked player in the nation, Bruna Colosio. Colosio, who ended the 2000 season as the nation’s sixth-ranked singles player before an off-season shoulder injury, accumulated a 6-1 record in fall play and took home the title in last week’s Georgia Invitational. Colosio, a junior from Cascaval, Brazil, won five-straight matches in the event, including a 6-2, 6-1, victory in the championship match over Tonya Grib, who is the NAIA’s No. 1-ranked player.
“She (Colosio) is playing awesome tennis right now,” Minnis said. “She looked really good in Georgia last week, and I think that maybe she is stronger now than she was before the injury. I’m prepared for her to do some big things for the team this season.”
The LSU men’s tennis team lost three-talented senior starters from last season, but with the emergence of eighth-ranked Ajay Ramaswami and 63rd-ranked Jesse Smatt, as well as a number of highly-touted incoming freshman, the 2001 Tigers look to return to the apex of the nation’s men’s tennis teams. Ramaswami, a senior from Mumbai, India, recorded an impressive 14-4 record in the fall season, while Smatt, who is the Tigers’ emotional leader, finished 10-6 in the off-season tournaments.
“We’re excited about going into tomorrow’s matches as a team,” explained Brown. “Because we’ve been playing as individuals throughout the fall, and now we’re just excited to get together and have our results count as a team.”
The Tigers have never been defeated in a dual match by either the Southern Jaguars or Centenary Gents. LSU possesses a 12-0 all-time record versus the Gents and a 6-0 mark against the Jaguars. The Lady Tigers boast similar all-time records versus their Saturday opponents, Centenary and West Florida. The Centenary Ladies are winless against LSU at 0-13, while West Florida has an 0-5 all-time record in Baton Rouge.
The LSU men’s and women’s tennis teams both kick off their 2001 dual-match seasons on Saturday with a quadruple header beginning at 10 a.m. in the “Dub” Robinson Tennis Stadium.
10 a.m. LSU men vs. Southern (side courts)
10 a.m. LSU women vs. Centenary (main courts)
1 p.m. LSU men vs. Centenary (main courts)
3 p.m. LSU women vs. West Florida (main courts)