BATON ROUGE — The 14th-ranked LSU men’s tennis team defeated the Louisiana-Monroe Indians, 7-0, on Wednesday at home in the W. T. “Dub” Robinson Tennis Stadium.
“I saw some definite improvement in our team today from the last match we played,” said LSU head coach Jeff Brown. “We have been working very hard this past week or so, and we’re going to have to continue that improvement throughout the season, because the level of competition will increase.”
The LSU tennis teams’ 7-0 victory over UL-Monroe marked the Tigers’ fourth-straight shutout of the season. LSU improved its overall record to 4-0, and has already recorded 7-0 wins against Southern, Centenary and Southeastern. The Indians dropped their third-straight match of the season and are winless at 0-3.
Wednesday’s triumph over UL-Monroe also proved to be the Tigers’ 71st-straight victory versus an in-state opponent. LSU has not been defeated by a school located in Louisiana in over 27 years. Tulane beat the Tigers, 3-6, in the final dual meet of the 1973 season.
In doubles play, LSU jumped out to an early lead in the match after notching 8-2 wins on all three courts. The Tigers’ doubles combination of junior Anthony Mateljan and sophomore John Gray Pou clinched the opening point with an 8-2 victory over UL-Monroe’s duo of Adam Piskozub and Taylor Vaughn.
The singles matches turned out to be a touch more competitive than the doubles matches were on Wednesday as two of the six singles matches went to third sets.
On court No. 3, LSU’s 63(superscript: rd)-ranked Jesse Smatt caught fire in the third-set super tiebreaker and knocked off the Indians’ Bart Darbrowski, 6-3, 5-7, 10-2. In the second three-set match of the afternoon, the Tigers’ freshman from Nashville, Tenn., Bryan Fisher, overcame a one-set deficit to ULM’s Piskozub on court No. 5 to finish with a 3-6, 6-2, 10-5 victory.
LSU’s Ajay Ramaswami, the eighth-ranked singles player in the nation, handily defeated Fred Blaine, 6-3, 6-1, in No. 1 singles, while UL-Monroe’s Rob Bailey pulled up lame on court No. 2 while trailing 5-4 in the first set to the Tigers’ Dan Kiernan.
On court No. 6, LSU’s Sebastian Rutka, a freshman from Krakow, Poland, dominated his entire match versus the Indians’ Taylor Vaughn. Rutka was victorious, 6-0, 6-0, in less than an hour. Another phenomenal Tiger freshmen, Sanjin Sadovich, accounted for the sixth LSU singles victory of the day, as he frustrated Jaime Pombo, 6-4, 6-1.
The 14th-ranked LSU men’s tennis team will next be in action on Saturday, February 10, as the Tigers’ travel to College Station, Texas, to face the sixth-ranked Texas A&M Aggies. The upcoming match marks LSU opening road competition of the 2001 dual-match season and will begin at 1:30 p.m.
#14 LSU 7, UL-Monroe 0
Singles
1. #8 Ajay Ramaswami (LSU) def. Fred Blaise (ULM), 6-3, 6-1.
2. Dan Kiernan (LSU) def. Rob Bailey (ULM), 5-4 (ret).
3. #63 Jessie Smatt (LSU) def. Bart Darbrowski (ULM), 6-3, 5-7, 10-2.
4. Sanjin Sadovich (LSU) def. Jaime Pombo (ULM), 6-4, 6-1.
5. Bryan Fisher (LSU) def. Adam Piskozub (ULM), 3-6, 6-2, 10-5.
6. Sebastian Rutka (LSU) def. Taylor Vaughn (ULM), 6-0, 6-0.
Doubles
1. Kiernan/Ramaswami (LSU) def. Bailey/Darbrowski (ULM), 8-2.
2. Smatt/Sadovich (LSU) def. Pombo/Blaise (ULM), 8-2.
3. Mateljan/Pou (LSU) def. Piskozub/Vaughn (ULM), 8-2.