BATON ROUGE — LSU men’s tennis player Danny Bryan was named SEC Men’s Tennis Player of the Week, the Southeastern Conference office announced Tuesday.
The honor is a first for the New Orleans native, who was named team captain before the season. He is the second Tiger to be named Player of the Week this season.
Bryan is currently ranked 14th in the ITA doubles poll along with partner Colt Gaston and is coming off an exceptional weekend that saw him go undefeated in both doubles and singles. The Tiger junior was clutch, winning several matches in tiebreakers.
Against South Carolina on Friday, Bryan and Gaston cruised by the duo of Yevgeny Supeko and Pedro Rodrigues, 8-1.
After winning the first set against Supeko in singles play, 6-2, Bryan dropped a tough second set, 5-7. However, the Tiger captain rebounded and finished off Supeko, 10-5, in a super tiebreaker third set. That win helped LSU to a, 7-0, sweep of the Gamecocks.
Sunday against Florida, Bryan and Gaston won, 8-7, in another tiebreaker and helped to secure a Tiger sweep on the doubles matches.
On the singles court Bryan defeated Florida’s Chris Brandi in straight sets to clinch LSU’s win over the No. 8-ranked Gators. The match included a monster first set, which ended in an 11-9 tiebreaker. In the second set Bryan dominated Brandi, 6-2, and sealed his team’s first top-10 victory of the season.
Additionally, the LSU men’s tennis team remained at No. 19 in the latest Intercollegiate Tennis Association poll released Tuesday.
The Tigers didn’t move up despite sweeping SEC East foe South Carolina on Friday and upsetting then No. 8-ranked Florida, 7-0.
The SEC placed six teams in the top-25. Undefeated Georgia (17-0, 6-0 SEC) remained at No. 1, while Ole Miss jumped up to the 10th spot. Florida fell from No. 8 to 14th following their loss to the Tigers.
No individual rankings were released this week. Ken Skupski is currently No. 22 in the signles poll and 12th with doubles partner Mark Growcott. Sophomore Colt Gaston and junior Danny Bryan are ranked 14th in the doubles poll.
LSU will host Mississippi State at 2 p.m. Friday and Ole Miss on Sunday at 1 p.m.