BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s tennis team received both of the weekly honors handed out by the Southeastern Conference on Wednesday as junior Michael Venus was named SEC Player of the Week and Sebastian Carlsson was named SEC Freshman of the Week.
The weekly honors come after the Tigers (11-6, 4-4 SEC) put together their strongest weekend of conference play last week with a dominating win against 70th-ranked South Carolina, 6-1, on Friday and a thrilling upset win over eighth-ranked Florida, 4-3, on Sunday.
The team was also rewarded for its strong play by jumping three spots to No. 16 in the latest rankings released by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association this week.
Carlsson has now been named SEC Freshman of the Week three times. The SEC Player of the Week honor is a first for Venus.
Venus jumped from No. 74 to 47 in the singles rankings. The 6-3 junior captured two straight-sets victories this past weekend, including the biggest win of his career by handily defeating third-ranked Greg Ouellette of Florida, 6-3, 6-4. The win against the four-time ITA All-American proved to be crucial as LSU upset eighth-ranked Florida by a 4-3 margin. Venus owns five wins against ranked opponents this season.
Senior Jan Zelezny remained in the singles rankings as he was listed at No. 118.
After not being in the rankings, the duo of Venus and James Cluskey appeared at No. 30 in the latest doubles rankings. The Tiger tandem cruised in both of their matches this past weekend to push their team-best record to 12-3. The LSU pair finished the regular season a perfect 10-0 at home.
Carlsson clinched both of LSU’s victories this past weekend. Carlsson’s biggest win of the season came Sunday when he clinched the Florida upset in the last match with a 6-4, 2-6, 6-1 win against Erik Corace.
The 6-foot freshman clinched LSU’s win over 70th-ranked South Carolina by breezing past David Wolff, 7-5, 6-2. Carlsson leads the Tigers in wins this season with 22. 18 of Carlsson’s wins have come in straight-sets.
Carlsson and doubles partner Zelezny’s 8-3 win against Florida’s Geoffery Barton and Tyler Hochwalt proved to be crucial as Florida won on court two and LSU ended up winning by a 4-3 margin.
The Tigers will be on the road next weekend when they travel to Mississippi to take on Mississippi State on Friday and seventh-ranked Ole Miss on Sunday.
Men’s Team, Singles and Doubles Rankings
Administered by the ITA
NCAA Division I Tennis
April 1, 2008
Team
Rank School Avg
1 Virginia 86.5
2 Ohio State 82.8
3 Georgia 79.3
4 UCLA 67.5
5 Southern California 67.2
6 Texas 67.1
7 Mississippi 63.9
8 Tennessee 56.1
9 Florida State 54.6
10 North Carolina 53.1
11 Florida 51.9
12 Tulsa 51.7
13 Pepperdine 48.6
14 Michigan 45.3
15 Baylor 42.1
16 LSU 41.8
17 Illinois 41
18 Texas Tech 38.6
19 Rice 36.5
20 Texas A&M 36.3
21 Oklahoma State 35.6
22 Arizona State 32.9
23 Washington 32.2
24 Alabama 31.8
25 Stanford 31.4