BATON ROUGE — The 14th-ranked LSU men’s tennis team saw its four-match SEC win streak snapped Friday in a 5-2 loss to No. 9 Florida at the W. T. Dub Robinson Tennis Stadium.
LSU’s 41st-ranked team of Cory Ross and Sebastian Rutka defeated Vladimir Obradovic and Janne Holmia 8-2 to open doubles competition. he 23rd-ranked duo of Bryan Fisher and Jason Hazley defeated 29th-ranked Hamid Mirzadeh and Chris Brandi to secure the doubles point for the Tigers.
However, the Gators recovered by winning five matches in singles action. Seventh-ranked Hamid Mirzadeh and 71st-ranked Janne Holmia earned wins over LSU’s 28th-ranked Ken Skupski and Jason Hazley on courts No. 1 and No. 2.
LSU’s Peter Richman lost a tough three-set match to 59th-ranked Vladimir Obradovic on the No. 3 court to clinch the match for Florida (14-6, 7-3 SEC).
“In singles, they were just a little better than we were right now,” said LSU head coach Jeff Brown. “We’re not quite at their level at a few positions. We are close, but we’re not quite at that level yet. I hope to get there by the end of the year, but we’re just not there yet.”
LSU (15-5, 6-4 SEC) will close the regular season at home Sunday at 1 p.m. as they face the South Carolina Gamecocks. Seniors Bryan Fisher, Sebastian Rutka and Cory Ross will be honored in Senior Day festivities prior to the match.
No. 9 Florida 5, No. 14 LSU 2
Singles:
No. 1 #7 Hamid Mirzadeh (UF) def. #28 Ken Skupski (LSU): 6-3, 6-4
No. 2 #71 Janne Holmia (UF) def. Jason Hazley (LSU): 6-3, 6-1
No. 3 #59 Vladimir Obradovic (UF) def. Peter Richman (LSU): 6-4, 2-6, 6-2
No. 4 Chris Brandi (UF) def. Bryan Fisher (LSU): 6-2, 4-6, 7-6 (7-5)
No. 5 Jordan Dolberg (UF) def. Sebastian Rutka (LSU): 7-5, 6-2
No. 6 Cory Ross (LSU) def. Martin Stiegwardt (UF): 6-0, 5-7, 6-4
Doubles:
No. 1 #23 Bryan Fisher/Jason Hazley (LSU) def. #29 Hamid Mirzadeh/Chris Brandi (UF): 8-4
No. 2 #41 Cory Ross/ Sebastian Rutka (LSU) def. Vladimir Obradovic/Janne Holmia (UF): 8-2
No. 3 Stefan Tell/Martin Stiegwardt (UF) def. Ken Skupski/Peter Richman (LSU): 9-7