BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s tennis team moved up one spot in the Omni Hotels Collegiate Tennis Rankings on Wednesday as the Tigers jumped to the No. 20 ranking in the weekly poll released by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association.
Despite posting an 0-2 record last week, LSU improved in the national rankings due to hard-fought matches against top-15 opponents in No. 14 South Carolina and the second-ranked Florida Gators. The Tigers lost to South Carolina on the road, 4-3, and were defeated by the Southeastern Conference-leading Gators, 7-0, in Gainesville, Fla.
Florida leads the SEC in Wednesday’s rankings as 11 of the conference’s 12 men’s tennis programs came in ranked among the nation’s top-26. Ole Miss is the eighth-ranked team in the country, while Kentucky comes in at No. 9 and South Carolina remained ranked No. 14.
The next cluster of SEC teams in the ITA rankings begins at No. 18 with Arkansas followed by Alabama, LSU and Vanderbilt at the No. 21 position.
Georgia moved up to the No. 23 ranking, while Auburn fell five spots to No. 24 and Tennessee improved to be the 26th-ranked team in the nation.
LSU’s Peter Richman remained in the ITA’s singles rankings on Wednesday and came in as the 51st-ranked player in the nation. In the doubles rankings, LSU’s combination of Jason Hazley and Bryan Fisher stayed in the top-20 for a third-consecutive week as the tandem earned the No. 16 ranking in Wednesday’s poll.
The 20th-ranked LSU men’s tennis team will next be in action on Friday, March 14, as the Tigers travel to Knoxville, Tenn., for an SEC matchup against the Tennessee Volunteers at 3 p.m. at the UT Varsity Courts.
Collegiate Tennis Rankings
Administered by the ITA
NCAA Division I Men’s Tennis
March 12, 2003
Last Wk Team (1st place) Pts
1 1 Illinois (8) 600
2 2 Florida 592
3 3 UCLA 584
4 4 Baylor 576
5 5 California 568
6 6 Stanford 559
7 7 Duke 546
8 8 Mississippi 545
9 9 Kentucky 538
10 10 Washington 530
11 11 Texas A&M 521
12 12 Minnesota 511
13 13 North Carolina 503
14 14 South Carolina 499
15 16 Texas 488
16 17 USC 479
17 18 VCU 473
18 20 Arkansas 463
19 15 Alabama 450
20 21 LSU 438
21 23 Vanderbilt 433
22 22 Ohio State 432
23 26 Georgia 425
24 19 Auburn 421
25 24 South Florida 414