BATON ROUGE –The 37th-ranked LSU men’s tennis team narrowly fell to 17th-ranked Texas A&M on Sunday at W.T. “Dub” Robinson Stadium by a 5-2 margin.
LSU (2-5) dropped the early doubles point to Texas A&M. Tiger tandem Sebastian Carlsson and Stefan Szacinski notched their second-straight victory with an 8-2 mark against Aggie duo Alexey Grigorov and Alberto Bautista.
After LSU’s Neal Skupski and Roger Anderson dropped their match to 13th-ranked Jeff Dadamo and Austin Krajicek, 8-3, the early decision fell to court three where LSU duo Julien Gauthier and James Turbervill were fighting back from a 4-1 deficit to Alexis Klegou and Marcus Lunt.
Gauthier and Turbervill rallied to a 7-all mark; however, the Texas A&M duo proved too much and took court three and the early point, 9-7.
LSU continued to work in singles to produce early wins on courts four and five. Szacinski was the first to put a point on the board for the Tigers with a straight-set victory over Niall Angus on court No. 5, 6-4,
6-3.
The next off the courts for LSU was sophomore Mark Bowtell. The 6-4 County Wicklow, Ireland, native defeated Grigorov on court No. 4, 6-3, 7-5, to win his second-straight match and move to a 3-2 dual record.
With Texas A&M leading 3-2, Carlsson battled 23rd-ranked Dadamo on court two. The LSU junior battled back from a 4-1 deficit in the first set, but Dadamo picked up the early advantage, 7-6. A 6-2 mark by Dadamo in the second set clinched the match for the Aggies.
LSU’s next match will be its Southeastern Conference opener against South Carolina on March 5. The Tigers and Gamecocks will square off in a 3 p.m. CST matchup in the “Dub.”
# 17 Texas A&M 5, #37 LSU 2
Feb. 28, 2010
W.T. “Dub” Robinson Stadium
Baton Rouge, La.
Singles
1. #24 Austin Krajicek (TXAM) def. #50 Neal Skupski (LSU), 7-6, 4-6, 10-4
2. #23 Jeff Dadamo (TXAM) def. Sebastian Carlsson (LSU), 7-6, 6-2
3. Alexis Klegou (TXAM) def. Julien Gauthier (LSU), 6-4, 6-2
4. Mark Bowtell (LSU) def. Alexey Grigorov (TXAM), 6-3, 7-5
5. Stefan Szacinski (LSU) def. Niall Angus (TXAM), 6-4, 6-3
6. Marcus Lunt (TXAM) def. James Turbervill (LSU), 6-1, 6-4
Doubles
1. #13 Dadamo/Krajicek(TXAM) def. Anderson/Skupski (LSU), 8-3
2. Carlsson/Szacinski (LSU) def. Grigorov/Bautista (TXAM), 8-2
3. Klegou/Lunt (TXAM) def. Gauthier/Turbervill (LSU), 9-7
Order of Finish: Doubles (2, 1, 3); Singles (6, 3,5, 4, 2, 1 )