BATON ROUGE — The 26th-ranked LSU men’s tennis team looks to earn its fourth Southeastern Conference victory of the season on Saturday, as the Tigers host the sixth-ranked Tennessee Volunteers at 1 p.m. in the W.T. “Dub” Robinson Tennis Stadium.
“The team is really looking forward to competing in another great match-up tomorrow,” said LSU head coach Jeff Brown. “Tennessee is very good and they have strong lineups in both their singles and doubles competitions. It has been a huge rivalry between us and Tennessee over the past couple of years and we’re just looking to compete at the highest-possible level tomorrow.”
LSU heads into Saturday’s match with an overall record of 10-3 on the season and an 3-2 mark versus SEC competition. The Tigers have earned conference victories over Vanderbilt (6-1), Kentucky (4-3) and Arkansas (4-3), while recording losses to SEC foes, No. 18 Mississippi State (5-2) and seventh-ranked Georgia (5-4).
In its previous match, the LSU men’s tennis team shutout Texas-Arlington at home for its seventh non-conference victory of the season. Wednesday’s 7-0 win over UTA marked the Tigers’ sixth victory of the season in which the opposition was held scoreless.
Tennessee comes into Baton Rouge after netting a 4-3 win over Tulane on Wednesday. The victory was the Volunteers’ third win in a row and their third-road victory of the season.
The Volunteer tennis team has accumulated an overall dual-match record of 10-2 this season, as well as an undefeated 4-0 mark in SEC play. Tennessee has defeated seventh-ranked Ole Miss (4-2), Vanderbilt (6-1), Alabama (4-3) and Arkansas (4-3) in conference duels this season.
Last season, LSU dropped both of its yearly dual-matches with the Volunteers. In the opening contest between the schools, Tennessee edged the Tigers, 4-3, in Baton Rouge to hand LSU its first loss of the season.
On the road in Knoxville, Tenn., the Volunteers earned a 5-2 victory over the Tigers in the second battle of the season. The win completed Tennessee’s first-ever yearly sweep of LSU in school history. The Volunteers lead the all-time series 19-18.
The Tigers will boast the services of two-ranked singles players on Saturday, as well as the play of a pair of nationally-ranked doubles teams.
In the latest WingspanBank.com Collegiate Tennis Rankings which were released on Friday, LSU’s No. 1 singles player, Ajay Ramaswami, moved up one position this week to claim the No. 10 ranking. He will be flanked in Saturday’s dual match by teammate Dan Kiernan, who comes in as the 64th-ranked player in the nation. Ramaswami owns a 20-11 overall record on the season while Kiernan possesses an 18-6 mark and an perfect 11-0 record in No. 2 singles play.
LSU also has two of the nation’s top-doubles teams in No. 29 Kiernan and Sebastian Rutka and the 40th-ranked combination of Jesse Smatt and Sanjin Sadovich. Smatt and Sadovich have not been defeated in dual play this season and have compiled a 9-0 dual-match record. The tandem of Kiernan and Rutka owns a 14-3 overall mark and are undefeated versus ranked opponents.
Tennessee has five-ranked singles players in No. 33 Peter Handoyo, No. 44 Adam Carey, No. 62 Mario Toledo, No. 74 Paul Podbury and 80th-ranked Mark Parsons. The Volunteers’ doubles combination of Carey and Parsons head into Saturday’s match as the 12th-ranked pair in the nation, while Andy Crews and Handoyo have earned the No. 38 ranking.
“This is a pivotal SEC match,” said Brown. “We would like to get as many fans out there as we possibly can tomorrow, so that they can help cheer us to victory. The crowd has played a major part in many of our matches this season, and we need them out there because the players feed off of the excitement of the fans.”
The 26th-ranked LSU men’s tennis team hosts the sixth-ranked Tennessee Volunteers on Saturday at 1 p.m. in a SEC match-up at the “Dub” Robinson Tennis Stadium. Admission is free to all Tiger tennis matches and the LSU tennis department will provide free deli sandwiches for the fans at the beginning of the contest.