BATON ROUGE — The Lady Tigers’ tennis team opens their dual match season Saturday when Centenary and UL-Lafayette come to LSU’s W.T. “Dub” Robinson Stadium.
The doubleheader is the first edition of a five-match home stand for the Lady Tigers. They also play Louisiana Tech and Southern next Wednesday.
“We are really excited to be starting the season at home,” said LSU head coach Tony Minnis.
LSU has a chance to make the NCAA tournament for the 10th consecutive season this year. With all their players returning from last year’s squad and no freshmen, the Lady Tigers have veterans playing at every position.
Senior Jessica Ferguson set the bar high earlier this month with three consecutive wins in the Michigan Invitational. The doubles team of senior Rocio Fantilli and sophomore Lauren Seaman was ranked 34th in the last ITA poll. They were ranked third in the Southwest Region.
Injuries forced the Lady Tigers to play five newcomers in the starting lineup by the end of last season.
“This season brings a lot of excitement,” Minnis said. “This is the first time I’ve had and entire team returning from the previous year. I guess what has me excited is that at the end of last year I saw how much they progressed from the beginning. I think that with the type of players we have we have a lot of potential to do something special this season.”
The Lady Tigers face Centenary at 9 a.m. and ULL at 1 p.m.