BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s tennis team moved to No. 35 in the Campbell/Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s rankings released by the ITA on Tuesday.
The rankings release comes prior to LSU taking on 27th-ranked University of South Florida as it returns to competition in Robinson Stadium on Wednesday at 3 p.m.
“This is one of their strongest teams in a number of years,” LSU head coach Jeff Brown said. “They have strength up and down the singles and doubles courts and have been playing with a lot of confidence.”
The Tigers return to Baton Rouge after splitting a weekend of Southeastern Conference competition on the road against then 39th-ranked Vanderbilt and former 21st-ranked Kentucky. Although LSU notched a win against Vanderbilt, 4-3, on Friday, the Tigers were unable to carry the momentum into Sunday’s match as they fell to Kentucky 7-0.
LSU (5-5, 1-3 SEC) holds a perfect 7-0 record over the University of South Florida. The two teams last squared off on the Tigers’ home courts last season. LSU claimed the early doubles point and went on to win the match by a 5-2 mark.
The University of South Florida Bulls carry a five-match win streak into competition against LSU, and as the two teams square off this season, a multitude of nationally-ranked players also have the potential to compete on the courts.
LSU’s Michael Venus held his spot among the top ten singles players in the country, coming in at No. 9. Venus and doubles partner Neal Skupski moved up a spot to No. 12 in the doubles rankings as the duo comes off a 2-0 record for the weekend. The Tiger tandem defeated two nationally-ranked opponents in former Vanderbilt’s former No. 30 duo of Adam Baker and Alex Zotov as well as Kentucky’s then 20th-ranked Bruno Agostinelli and Brad Cox.
South Florida (9-4) features a pair of nationally-ranked singles players in No. 7 Lucas Jovita and No. 95 Wael Kilani. The Bulls also hold the 27th-ranked duo of Jovita and Thomas Estrada.