BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s tennis team fell short in their efforts against Alabama as the Crimson Tide posted a 5-2 mark on Sunday in W.T. Robinson Stadium.
Alabama (11-1) jumped to an early lead against LSU (4-4) as it captured the doubles point after victories on courts one and two, however, LSU moved to a victory on court three. The sophomore Tiger tandem of Sebastian Carlsson and Julien Gauthier were able to claim their second victory of Southeastern Conference competition against Ricky Doverspike and Andrew Felsenthal, 8-3.
After the Crimson Tide gained the early doubles point, the Tigers were never able to fully recover in singles, but two of LSU’s key singles performers were able to notch victories.
Sophomore Sebastian Carlsson had a strong performance on court three as he bounced back from a first set deficit. Alabama’s Dan Buikema posted a 6-4 mark in the first set over Carlsson, but the LSU sophomore once again proved bounce-back ability. Carlsson answered Buikema with a 7-6 mark in the second set. The two entered into a super-tiebreaker, and Carlsson breezed to 10-1, taking the match.
LSU’s Mark Bowtell gave the Tigers their second victory on the singles courts. The 6-4 freshman took down Alabama’s Michael Jung in straight-sets, 7-6, 6-4, continuing a solid SEC performance with his second victory of the weekend. The County Wicklow, Ireland native counted his first SEC victory against No. 26 Auburn as he defeated senior Alex Petropoulos, 6-3, 6-2.
In addition to LSU’s two singles victories, senior James Cluskey contended with nationally-ranked player Mathieu Thibaudeau. Cluskey dropped the first set by a 6-3 mark to the 114th-ranked player, but claimed a strong 6-2 mark in the second set. Cluskey jumped ahead with the first point in the super-tiebreaker, but Thibaudeau proved too much, moving to a 10-4 mark.
“It was a tough loss for us because we were hoping to turn things around today, but things don’t always happen the way you want them to,” LSU head coach Jeff Brown said. “We have to go back to work. I thought the effort was good in singles, but we lacked a little in doubles.”
The Tigers continue SEC competition on Friday against Vanderbilt as LSU hits the road to the Brownlee Currey Jr. Tennis Center for a 2 p.m. match.
#20 Alabama 5, #30 LSU 2
Mar 08, 2009
W.T. “Dub” Robinson Tennis Stadium
Singles competition
1. #66 Saketh Myneni (UA) def. #9 Michael Venus (LSU) 6-1, 6-3
2. Mathieu Thibaudeau (UA) def. James Cluskey (LSU) 6-3, 2-6, 10-4
3. Billy Mertz (UA) def. Neal Skupski (LSU) 6-4, 6-4
4. Michael Thompson (UA) def. Julien Gauthier (LSU) 6-3, 6-2
5. Sebastian Carlsson (LSU) def. Dan Buikema (UA) 4-6 (10-0), 7-6, 10-1
6. Mark Bowtell (LSU) def. Michael Jung (UA) 7-6 (7-4), 6-4
Doubles competition
1. Mathieu Thibaudeau/Dan Buikema (UA) def. #13 Neal Skupski/Michael Venus (LSU) 8-6
2. #27 Billy Mertz/Saketh Myneni (UA) def. James Cluskey/Mark Bowtell (LSU) 8-3
3. Julien Gauthier/Sebastian Carlsson (LSU) def. Ricky Doverspike/Andrew Felsenthal (UA) 8-3
Order of finish: Doubles (1, 2, 3); Singles (1, 4, 3, 2, 5, 6)