BATON ROUGE — After splitting two home matches in the first weekend of SEC play, the 17th-ranked LSU men’s tennis team will travel to Lexington to face the Kentucky Wildcats at 1:30 p.m. (CST) Friday.
The Tigers (8-5, 1-1 SEC) are coming off a week that saw them rally Friday to down Tennessee, 4-3, before falling to No. 1-ranked Georgia, 6-1, on Sunday.
Kentucky (9-2, 2-0 SEC) is riding a five match-winning streak, including conference wins over Alabama and Auburn last weekend.
LSU leads the all-time series between the schools, 28-10, but dropped last season’s match in Baton Rouge, 4-3.
The No. 29-ranked Wildcats feature a solid singles lineup that includes three ranked players. They are led by 32-ranked player Bruno Agostinelli and No. 41-ranked Alex Hume. Agostinelli, a freshman, has posted 23-9 singles record and has taken over Kentucky’s No. 1 singles spot.
“Kentucky has a very strong singles lineup and they have the potential to give you problems,” said LSU head coach Jeff Brown. “We need some of the guys to play better in the doubles point and try to get up early.”
Agostinelli will likely match up with LSU junior Ken Skupski on the No. 1 singles court, who will look to rebound after a loss to Georgia’s Luis Flores. Tiger senior Mark Growcott will try to keep up his two match-winning streak.
Following Friday’s match the Tigers will head to Nashville, where they will face Vanderbilt on Sunday.