BATON ROUGE — The 23rd-ranked LSU women’s tennis team cruised its way to two non-conference victories on Saturday, as the Lady Tigers swept the Southern Lady Jaguars, 6-0, and defeated the UL-Monroe Indians by the score of 6-1 in the “W.T, “Dub” Robinson Tennis Stadium.
With the pair of wins, LSU remained undefeated on the season and improved its overall record to 4-0. Saturday’s matches also marked the Lady Tigers’ 29th and 30th-straight victories over in-state opponents. LSU’s most recent loss to a school located in Louisiana was to Tulane, 3-6, in 1992.
In the opening dual match against Southern, the Lady Tigers’ played solid tennis and only gave up three games in the singles competition. The Lady Jaguars’ No. 1 player, Kim Nabors, took the opening game of the match versus LSU’s Rocio Fantilli, but then Fantilli reeled off nine-straight games and finished, 6-1, 6-1.
Courts numbers one, two, and five all ended up in 6-0, 6-0 wins for the Lady Tigers. Tami Botts defeated Southern’s Jerlonda Stewart on No. 2, Lauren Haddix blanked Carla Alexander on No. 3, and Mandy Rice dominated her match with the Lady Tigers’ Ikira Brown in less than 45 minutes. The teams opted not to play the doubles competition, therefore LSU came out on top, 6-0.
The UL-Monroe Indians jumped out to an early lead in Saturday’s doubles matches versus the Lady Tigers. The Indians led on all three doubles courts before the LSU women’s team woke up and ended up salvaging the point with all three victories. The Lady Tigers’ superb duo of Colosio/Fantilli were losing to the combination of Matilde Taborda and Kathi Sadofsky on court No. 1, but then swept the next seven games and finished, 8-4.
In singles play, LSU was victorious on all but one court. Haddix, the Lady Tigers’ sophomore No. 3 singles player was forced to retire with the score 1-2 in the first set to UL-Monroe’s Anna Tenyk after incurring a slight injury to her right quadriceps muscle.
LSU’s senior from Sao Paulo, Brazil, Fernanda Tsucamoto, clinched the 6-1 victory over the Indians on court No. 4 with a 6-4, 6-2, win against Vajovic. UL-Monroe dropped to 0-2 on the season, while Southern picked up its first loss of the year and is 1-1.
The 23rd-ranked LSU women’s tennis team will next be in action on Feb. 10, as the Lady Tigers travel to face Texas A&M at 1:30 in College Station, Texas.
#23 LSU 6, Southern 0
Singles
1. Rocio Fantilli (LSU) def. Kim Nabors (SU), 6-1, 6-1.
2. Tami Botts (LSU) def. Jerlonda Stewart (SU), 6-0, 6-0.
3. Lauren Haddix (LSU) def. Carla Alexander (SU), 6-0, 6-0.
4. Fernanda Tsucamoto (LSU) def. Kaliya Session (SU), 6-1, 6-0.
5. Mandy Rice (LSU) def. Nicole Thompson (SU), 6-0, 6-0.
6. Amy McIlhaney (LSU) def. Ikira Brown (SU), default (DNP).
Doubles were not played
#23 LSU 6, UL-Monroe 1
Singles
1. Rocio Fantilli (LSU) def. Matilde Taborda (ULM), 6-1, 6-3.
2. Tami Botts (LSU) def. Kaori Tunabe (ULM), 7-5, 6-3.
3. Anna Yenyk (ULM) def. Lauren Haddix (LSU), 1-2 (ret).
4. Fernanda Tsucamoto (LSU) def. Melissa Vajovic (ULM), 6-4, 6-2.
5. Mandy Rice (LSU) def. Kathi Sadofsky (ULM), 6-0, 6-2.
6. Amy McIlhaney (LSU) def. Julie Perovic (ULM), 7-5, 6-7(5), 10-2.
Doubles
1. Colosio/Fantilli (LSU) def. Taborda/Tanabe (ULM), 8-4.
2. Tsucamoto/McIlhaney (LSU) def. Yenyk/Peravic (ULM), 8-4.
3. Botts/Rice (LSU) def. Vujovic/Souza (ULM), 8-5.