BATON ROUGE — The 16th-ranked LSU men’s tennis team will host No. 27 Rice at W.T. “Dub” Robinson Stadium for the first home match of the season on Saturday.
LSU (1-1) trails Rice (7-2) by a 9-16-2 mark in the overall series record, however, the Tigers marked a victory the past two times the teams have met. The Tigers and Owls last squared off in Houston during the 2008 season with the Tigers pushing past the Owls, 4-2.
“It has become an extremely competitive series and every year it’s been a very close and competitive match,” said LSU head coach Jeff Brown. “They have been a highly ranked team for several years and it will take a solid effort for us to be successful.”
LSU opened dual play last Saturday at the ITA’s Kick-Off Weekend hosted by the University of Tulsa. The Tigers split for the weekend in competition against two nationally ranked opponents, No. 12 Tulsa and formerly 20th ranked Texas Tech.
LSU triumphed in a close match on day one against Texas Tech by a 4-3 mark with Tiger tandem Neal Skupski and Michael Venus notching a win over the No. 7 duo of Raony Carvalho and Christian Rojmar, 8-4.
In day two, LSU fell to Tulsa in a five-hour match, 4-2, but not before LSU’s Skupski and Venus pushed past their second top-ten duo, No. 4 Arnau Brugues and Philip Stephens, 8-6.
Three nationally ranked singles players will appear on the courts Saturday with LSU’s Michael Venus, No. 2 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s rankings, holding the highest spot. Rice lists No. 26 Bruno Rosa and No. 61 Sam Garforth-Bles. Rice also holds the No. 51 doubles team of Tobias Schiel and Bruno Rosa.
LSU and Rice will face off in a match slated for 1 p.m. on the Tigers’ home courts.