BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s tennis team moved up to the No. 15 slot in the national rankings, the Intercollegiate Tennis Association announced on Tuesday.
LSU (2-1) rose to a 4-3 victory over No. 27 Rice over the weekend in front of a home crowd as LSU hosted its first dual match of the season. LSU swept doubles to give the Tigers the early point. Neal Skupski, who earned Southeastern Conference Freshman of the Week, clinched the match for LSU with a straight-set victory over Rice’s Chong Wang, 6-4, 6-4.
LSU was the only SEC team to move up in the rankings as each of the 11 other teams in the league held their previous positions. Georgia, 2008 national champion, retained the highest spot at No. 3. Three conference teams follow Georgia in the top ten – Florida (No. 7), Tennessee (No. 8) and Ole Miss (No. 9). Seven SEC teams check in behind 15th-ranked LSU- Alabama (No. 19), Vanderbilt (No. 28), Auburn (No. 29) Kentucky (No. 31), Arkansas (No. 47), South Carolina (No. 51) and Mississippi State (No. 52).
LSU returns to action on Feb. 22 as the Tigers travel to Columbus, Ohio to square off with Ohio State, the current No. 1 team in the nation, in an 11 a.m. match set on the Buckeyes’ home courts at the Stickney Tennis Center.
ITA Men’s Tennis Rankings
Administered by the ITA
NCAA Division I Tennis
February 10, 2009
Rank School
1 Ohio State University
2 Univ. of Texas at Austin
3 University of Georgia
4 UCLA
5 University of Virginia
6 Univ. of Southern California
7 University of Florida
8 University of Tennessee, Knoxville
9 Univ. of Mississippi
10 Baylor University
11 Stanford University
12 Univ. of Tulsa
13 University of Illinois
14 Texas A&M University
15 LSU
16 Florida State University
17 Oklahoma State University
18 University of Michigan
19 University of Alabama
20 Pepperdine
21 Wake Forest University
22 North Carolina
23 Univ. of Miami (Florida)
24 California
25 Univ. of Notre Dame