BATON ROUGE — The 20th-ranked LSU men’s tennis team posted its biggest win of the 2003 dual-match season on Sunday as the Tigers knocked off the 12th-ranked Kentucky Wildcats, 4-2, at the W.T. “Dub” Robinson Tennis Stadium.
“We played really well today,” said LSU head coach Jeff Brown. “I don’t think that we played too dissimilar than the way we played against Vanderbilt. We just seemed to have a little more energy to close out our matches. After coming off a big win against Texas, I think that maybe our guys had a little too much satisfaction and I think it showed. Today, we found our hunger again and closed out our matches.”
Only two days removed from losing a hard-fought contest against eighth-ranked Vanderbilt on Friday, LSU registered its third victory over a top-20 ranked opponent and improved its record to 5-6 against ranked rivals.
The Tigers have earned crucial wins over No. 12 Kentucky, No. 16 Texas and 17th-ranked Auburn this season.
With LSU leading the overall score of the match, 3-1, the Tigers’ 38th-ranked Peter Richman held on to secure a straight-set victory over Kentucky’s No. 65-ranked Karim Benmansour to clinch the win. Richman’s 6-2, 7-5 victory on court No. 3 marked his sixth win over a top-100 ranked opponent and upped his overall record on the season to 14-13.
“This was a guy that I had lost to last year, but I knew that I was better than him,” Richman said. “It took some belief out there, but after he gave me a couple of early breaks it made me believe in myself and I took advantage of the situation. Both Vanderbilt and Kentucky are very solid teams and it was good for us to get a big win today against Kentucky.”
LSU (10-6, 3-5 SEC) took an early 1-0 lead in Sunday’s Southeastern Conference matchup by winning two of the three doubles contests.
The Tigers’ 13th-ranked tandem of Bryan Fisher and Jason Hazley defeated Kentucky’s combination of Benmansour and Matt Emery, 8-4, on court No. 1, while LSU’s No. 3 doubles pair comprised of Richman and Brandon Nicholson registered an 8-5 win over the Wildcats’ Evan Austin and Alex Hume. With their win, LSU’s Fisher and Hazley improved to an overall record of 18-8 on the season.
Sebastian Rutka, the Tigers’ junior from Krakow, Poland, increased LSU’s lead to 2-0 with a quick straight-set victory over Emery on court No. 4. The 6-3, 6-1 win proved to be Rutka’s third in a row and also improved his overall record on the season to 15-8.
LSU’s Cory Ross turned in a clutch performance on Sunday as the Tiger junior earned a 7-5, 6-4 win over 113th-ranked Rahim Esmail on court No. 5. With the win, Ross gained LSU’s third point of the afternoon and upped his dual record to a team-leading 12-4 mark during the 2003 campaign.
“We really showed some heart in the way that we were able to finish our matches,” Brown said. “I think that was true in Cory’s match, Peter’s match and in Sebastian’s match. Against winning the doubles point against Vanderbilt, we thought that we had a good chance to defeat them, and when a match like that gets taken away from you there’s a little more pain and today we had that back-against-the-wall mentality.”
Kentucky (15-8, 5-3 SEC) accumulated its two wins in singles play on courts Nos. 1 and 6. In the No. 1 singles contest, Kentucky’s 13th-ranked Jesse Witten outlasted the Tigers’ Jason Hazley, 6-3, 7-6(5), while the Wildcats’ Hume defeated LSU’s Nicholson, 6-3, 6-0, on court No. 6.
The 20th-ranked LSU men’s tennis team will next be in action on Wednesday, April 2, as the Tigers will compete in their final non-conference road contest of the season against the Southern Methodist Mustangs at 1 p.m. in Dallas, Texas.
#20 LSU (10-6, 3-5 SEC) def. #12 Kentucky (15-8, 5-3), 4-2
Doubles
1. #13 Fisher/Hazley (LSU) def. Benmansour/Emery (UK), 8-4
2. Ross/Rutka (LSU) vs. Esmail/Witten (UK), suspended
3. Nicholson/Richman (LSU) def. Austin/Hume (UK), 8-5
– – Order of Finish: 3, 1
Singles
1. #13 Jesse Witten (UK) def. Jason Hazley (LSU), 6-3, 7-6(4)
2. Bryan Fisher (LSU) vs. Evan Austin (UK), suspended
3. #38 Peter Richman (LSU) def. #65 Karim Benmansour (UK), 6-2, 7-5
4. Sebastian Rutka (LSU) def. Matt Emery (UK), 6-3, 6-1
5. Cory Ross (LSU) def. #113 Rahim Esmail (UK), 7-5, 6-4
6. Alex Hume (UK) def. Brandon Nicholson (LSU), 6-3, 6-0
– – Order of Finish: 4, 6, 5, 3, 1