BATON ROUGE — The 31st-ranked LSU men’s tennis team closes out the regular season at W.T. Robinson Stadium in a noon match on Saturday against the 47th-ranked Arkansas Razorbacks as a part of LSU’s Super Tiger Weekend.
In the Tigers’ last home match, LSU fans watched the team overcome Mississippi State, 4-2, in match that spanned two days due to inclement weather.
“Arkansas will be similar to Mississippi State and the level of intensity they brought in last weekend,” LSU head coach Jeff Brown said. “They are in a situation where they have to win the match to basically secure a spot in the NCAA tournament, so we know how hungry we would be in the situation. They have great personnel and their top four are as good as anyone’s in the nation.”
Arkansas owns a 10-12 dual record and is 2-6 in Southeastern Conference competition. In the Razorbacks’ two most recent matches against Mississippi Sate and Ole Miss, Arkansas’ top singles player, 18th-ranked Blake Strode, took down Ole Miss’ then-23rd-ranked Jonas Berg and Mississippi State’s 88th-ranked Ryan Farlow.
Strode leads Arkansas with a 12-7 record and is part of 90th-ranked duo along with Matt Hogan. The duo is 5-8 on the season, but the Razorbacks’ premier duo is 73rd-ranked Dmitry Lebedev and Chris Nott with a 10-3 record.
LSU (8-10, 3-7 SEC) is led by 7th-ranked Michael Venus. The 6-3 senior owns an 11-6 dual record and is one-half the sixth-ranked tandem with freshman partner Neal Skupski. The Tiger duo is 10-7 on the season with their biggest win coming over then-second ranked Jonas Berg and Bram ten Berge in the match against Ole Miss by an 8-4 mark.
LSU leads the all-time record by a 20-4 record as the Razorbacks visit Baton Rouge. The Tigers have won the last two meetings between the two teams, taking each match by a 5-2 mark.
When Saturday’s match commences, three seniors will take the courts for their final match at the Dub. Venus along with James Cluskey and Jonathan Tragardh will be honored between doubles and singles for their time and accomplishments with the team.