PALO ALTO, Calif. — A nagging back injury forced LSU’s Ken Skupski to retire in the second set of his round of 32 singles match with Travis Helgeson of Texas in the NCAA Men’s Tennis Championships at Stanford’s Taube Family Tennis Center on Thursday.
Skupski dropped the opening set in a hard-fought tiebreaker, 7-6(3). However, his injury continued to plague him and he quickly fell behind 3-0 in the following set, prompting the Tiger junior to retire.
“Ken gave it his best, but his back spasms started to flare up during the match,” LSU head coach Jeff Brown said. “We did not want to risk further injury and decided it was best not to continue.”
Skupski had a 4-3 lead in the first set, but Helgeson quickly tied it and both competitors held serve the rest of the way sending it to a tiebreaker.
Helgeson jumped to a 3-0 lead in the tiebreaker, but Skupski fought his way back to narrow the gap to a 3-2 deficit.
Skupski only scored one point the rest of the way, losing the tiebreaker 7-3.
The Liverpool, England, native struggled with his back injury throughout the second set and was forced to retire with Helgeson ahead 3-0.
The loss eliminated Skupski from the singles portion of the tournament, and he will receive treatment on his back before determining if he can play in his doubles match tonight.
If Skupski can play, he and partner Mark Growcott will face the No. 35-ranked pair of Nick Coutts and Zach Ganger of Utah at 8 p.m. CT.
LSU’s other doubles tandem of Danny Bryan and Colt Gaston are still waiting to find out whether or not they will compete. They are currently the No. 2 alternate in the tournament.