HOUSTON — Two days after a hard-fought contest against second-ranked Ohio State, the 26th-ranked LSU men’s tennis team has another tough non-conference match when it travels to face 11th-ranked Rice Tuesday at Jake Hess Stadium for a 1:30 p.m. contest.
Tuesday’s match will be the final non-conference regular season match for the Tigers as they return to conference play Friday when they host the defending national-champion Georgia Bulldogs.
LSU (8-4, 2-2 SEC) spilt its two home matches last week against 34th-ranked South Florida and second-ranked Ohio State.
On Wednesday, the Tigers knocked off the Bulls, 5-2. The Tigers put up a valiant effort against the second-ranked Buckeyes on Sunday but Ohio State snapped LSU’s four-match win streak with a 4-2 win.
The Owls (9-4) are coming off a 4-3 home loss against 17th-ranked Florida State last Tuesday. Rice leads the all-time series against LSU with an 8-16-2 record. LSU defeated Rice last season by a 4-3 mark.
“Rice presents a tough challenge for us,” said LSU head coach Jeff Brown. “They are having a strong year. They have some strong points. Some of our guys have to step up for us to win. We are going to have to have a better doubles point than we had against Ohio State. We need to be on the top of our game tomorrow.”
LSU has yet to win a road match this season as it owns a 0-3 record when playing outside of Baton Rouge.
LSU team captain Kevin Dessauer has been the Tigers’ most reliable singles player this season as he has gone undefeated in the regular season with a 10-0 record. The New Orleans native has only lost four sets during dual play.
LSU’s top doubles pair of James Cluskey and Michael Venus owns an 8-2 record and is on a four-match win streak. The Tiger tandem was one game away from defeating the 23rd-ranked team of Ohio State’s Justin Kronauge and Shuhei Uzawa on Sunday with a 7-2 lead before they called the match after the Buckeyes clinched the doubles point.
Rice enters the match with three ranked singles players – Christoph Muller (No. 37), Bruno Rosa (No. 44) and Ralph Knupfer (No. 110). Knupfer and Muller are listed in the doubles rankings at No. 16.