NOTE: After the Vanderbilt match ended at 2 p.m., the Centenary match was moved to a 3 p.m. CDT start time.
BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s tennis team will host a doubleheader Sunday at W.T. “Dub” Robinson Tennis Stadium with No. 22-ranked Vanderbilt at 11 a.m. and Centenary at 3 p.m.
The Tigers (5-3, 1-2 SEC) are coming off a 4-0 win against Kentucky on Friday which was delayed for six hours due to poor weather conditions. All five of LSU’s wins this season have come at home.
The Commodores (9-3, 1-2 SEC) dropped a tightly contested match at Arkansas, 4-3, on Friday. LSU has a 41-14-1 all-time record against Vanderbilt. Last season, The Tigers won in Baton Rouge by a 6-1 mark. The Commodores are led by Ian Duvenhage who is in his third season as head coach.
The 22nd-ranked Commodores will be the fourth top-25 team the Tigers have faced this season.
“Both of us were in tough situations on Friday with their match coming down to the last singles contest and our match being delayed,” said LSU head coach Jeff Brown. “There are nine or ten SEC teams that will have a lot of 4-3 conference matches. We had a difficult day Friday but we still got the win. We are building on that confidence but we understand that Vanderbilt is one of those teams that is going to be in the match until the end. We know we are going to get their best shot.”
The Gents (1-5, 0-0 Summit) fell at Lamar on Wednesday by a 7-0 score. Head coach Larry Jacobs is in his seventh season at Centenary.
LSU and Centenary were originally scheduled to square off on Feb. 5 but the match was postponed due to expected inclement weather. The Tigers own a commanding 19-0 all-time record against the Gents. LSU won last season’s meeting by a 6-0 score.
The Centenary match kicks off a four-match stretch of non-conference opponents for LSU.
LSU currently has four players with double digit singles victories. Carlsson leads the way with 17 wins and has won eight of his last ten matches.
Senior Jan Zelezny is second on the team with 15 wins. The Czech Republic native clinched LSU’s win over Kentucky Friday night.
Freshman Julien Gauthier‘s 13 wins ranks third on the team.
After entering the dual season with a 5-7 record, team captain Kevin Dessauer has won six straight matches to put his record at 11-7.