BATON ROUGE — The LSU women’s tennis team is looking to remain atop the Southeastern Conference standings on Sunday, as the Lady Tigers host the fourth-ranked Florida Gators at 1 p.m. in the W.T. “Dub” Robinson Tennis Stadium.
“It’s always a huge match when Florida comes to town,” said LSU head coach Tony Minnis. “They are consistently ranked among the top-five teams in the nation, and once again they have a very talented squad this season. We are going to have to play a perfect tennis match tomorrow in order come away with a win.”
LSU and Florida each head into Sunday’s SEC-dual match with identical 2-0 conference records and a share of the first-place position. The Lady Tigers have accumulated an 8-1 overall record on the season, while Florida comes in with a 4-0 mark in dual matches.
With a win on Sunday, LSU can take sole possession of first place in the SEC and hand Florida its first loss of the season. The Gators have encountered little resistance this season and have recorded wins over Florida State (7-0), Kentucky (5-2), South Florida (7-0) and South Carolina (6-1).
The Lady Tiger tennis team is in the midst of its second four-match winning streak of the 2001 season. LSU defeated Centenary (7-0), West Florida (7-0), Southern (7-0) and UL-Monroe (6-1) to open the year, and then began their current-winning streak with wins over Florida State (4-3), Houston (6-1), Alabama (5-2) and Mississippi State (4-3).
The Lady Tigers’ lone loss of the season was a 5-2 upset at the hands of the Texas A&M Aggies on the road in College Station, Texas. Despite the loss, LSU is still off to its best start since 1997. The Lady Tigers opened up the 1997 season with a 9-1 dual-match record until Florida handed the team its second loss of the year in a 9-0 blowout here in Baton Rouge.
“We have a very talented team this season,” Minnis said. “When we are playing at our best, we can be really dangerous and should be able to beat some good teams this year. We only lost one of our starters from last season, and our younger players have gained a lot of experience by going to the sweet 16 a year ago.”
LSU has never beaten the Gators in dual-match play and Florida is 24-0 versus the Lady Tigers. Last season, the teams played twice as they met in both the regular season and the SEC tournament. In the first meeting between the teams, the Gators were victorious, 7-2, in Gainesville, Fla., while Florida then posted a 5-1 win over the Lady Tigers in the second round of the SEC tournament.
The Lady Tigers can boast one-nationally ranked singles player, while Florida possesses four of the top-100 players in the country. LSU’s 44th-ranked Bruna Colosio will face the Gators’ 27th-ranked Whitney Laiho in a No. 1 singles battle. Florida will also start No. 25 Jessica Lehnhoff, No. 50 Lindsay Dawaf and 92nd-ranked Julia Scaringe in singles play.
In Sunday’s doubles competition, two top-15 teams will go head-to-head on court No. 1. LSU’s 13th-ranked combination of Colosio and Rocio Fantilli will be challenged by Florida’s 14th-ranked team comprised of Laiho and Lehnhoff.
The LSU women’s tennis team will face the fourth-ranked Florida Gators on Sunday at 1 p.m. in the “Dub” Robinson Tennis Stadium.