BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — The LSU women’s tennis team looks to continue its early fall success at the Indiana Hoosier Classic hosted by Indiana University this weekend.
The tournament, which begins Friday and ends Sunday, will be comprised of five flights (A-E) for singles competition. Each flight is a draw eight. The main doubles bracket is a draw 16 with additional round robin matches each day.
The field of six for this tournament includes four teams finishing in the top 75 a year ago, with No. 24 Notre Dame, No. 36 Indiana, No. 44 LSU and No. 71 Kansas State participating. Kansas and Murray State round out the list of competitors.
“There are some very good teams competing in this tournament, and it’s not going to be easy,” head coach Tony Minnis commented. “It should give us a good indication of where we are.”
The Lady Tigers just completed the Maryland Invitational last weekend, where both seniors Marina Chiarelli and Daysi Espinal won the title of her flight and freshman Mykala Hedberg staged an impressive debut, winning the flight “A” consolation bracket.
“I was really impressed with the way the majority of our team played at Maryland that early in the season,” Minnis said. “I was very pleased to go out and have the kind of results we had.
“I think the biggest thing that this team can improve on from a year ago is being able to do it back-to-back, and not necessarily just with the winning and losing, but with the way we compete. We competed hard for three days in Maryland, and if we can go up to Indiana and do the exact same thing, that would say a lot about our team.”
Several LSU players either will not compete or are questionable to compete in this weekend’s tournament. Sophomore Staten Spencer is suffering from a back injury and will not compete at all this fall season.
Senior Camila Caliari and sophomore Anastasiya Dubova are both questionable for the weekend, dealing with a foot and ankle injury, respectively.
“This has really been bizarre,” Minnis explained. “We’ve had a bunch of really bizarre injuries that are affecting our team right now, but that’s part of the game. You just have to go out there with what you have and do what you can.”