BATON ROUGE — The 25th-ranked LSU women’s tennis team is set to take on the Tulsa Golden Hurricane on Friday at the W.T. “Dub” Robinson Tennis Stadium in the first-ever meeting between the two programs.
“Tomorrow is going to be another war,” said LSU head coach Tony Minnis. “Tulsa is an outstanding team. They are currently the No. 34 team in the nation and they have the capability to beat anyone. We just need to come out with a high-level of intensity tomorrow and play strong consistent tennis.”
The Lady Tigers head into Friday’s dual-match contest with an overall record of 9-3 on the season. LSU recorded a victory in its most-recent match by defeating Southern Methodist, 5-2, in a home non-conference duel.
LSU has earned a 2-2 Southeastern Conference record this season with wins over Alabama (5-2) and Mississippi State (4-3), as well as identical 6-1 losses to fourth-ranked Florida and seventh-ranked Vanderbilt.
Tulsa comes into Baton Rouge looking to rebound from a heartbreaking loss to Oklahoma State on Wednesday. After dropping the doubles point, the Golden Hurricane rallied to take three singles matches from Oklahoma State, but then fell short in the third set of the final-singles match to lose, 4-3.
The Golden Hurricane is currently 8-2 on the season and has recorded victories over 41st-ranked Minnesota, as well as conference rivals Texas Christian and Hawaii.
Both LSU and Tulsa possess a nationally-ranked singles player and a top-doubles team. In the No. 1 singles match-up, the Lady Tigers’ 43rd-ranked Bruna Colosio is scheduled to face Tulsa’s 87th-ranked Alexandra Durska. Colosio owns a 14-2 overall record on the season, while Durska comes into the match at 21-6.
Tulsa owns the No. 17 doubles team in the nation, which is comprised of Jennifer DeSpain and Jana Sedivic. They will be matched up against the Lady Tigers’ 20th-ranked pair of Colosio and Rocio Fantilli. LSU’s Colosio and Fantilli have accumulated a 9-1 doubles record this season, while DeSpain and Sedivic enter at 18-5.
“This will be the fourth, tough non-conference match that we have played so far this season,” Minnis said. “It is always difficult to play such a hard non-conference schedule, but it ends up helping us immensely in the post season.”
The 25th-ranked LSU women’s tennis team will host the Tulsa Golden Hurricane on Friday at 5 p.m., as the Lady Tigers are scheduled to close out a double-header at the “Dub” Robinson Tennis Stadium. The 16th-ranked Tiger men’s team will open the double-dip at 2 p.m. versus the Kentucky Wildcats. Admission is free to each of the matches and the LSU tennis department will provide pizza for the fans.