BATON ROUGE – The LSU women’s tennis team looks for its first dual match win of the season when it faces off with No. 47 Rice on Tuesday at 1 p.m. in Houston, Texas.
Rice enters the match with a record of 3-2 including a win over No. 57 Oklahoma State. Its only losses have come to No. 3 Baylor and No. 21 Texas.
The Owls are led by Dominique Harmath, ranked No. 101 in the ITA Preseason rankings. The freshman posted a 13-2 record in the fall and is 2-3 so far this spring. Rebekka Hanle, a senior from Ochsenhausen, Germany, has a 4-1 singles record and began the fall season ranked No. 57 before falling to No. 114 in the Preseason rankings.
Hanle is joined by junior Ana Guzman to guide Rice in doubles play. The two have notched a 4-1 clip this season with their only loss coming to Krista Damico and Aeriel Ellis of Texas.
Despite losing on Sunday to Texas A&M, the Lady Tigers received solid play from freshman Ariel Morton and sophomores Kaitlin Burns and Ebie Wilson who all won their singles matches against the Aggies.
No. 33 Whitney Wolf will look to rebound from a tough loss to Texas A&M’s Nazari Urbina. The junior from Pride, La., knocked off Hanle in last season’s matchup 3-6, 6-1, 6-2.
The Lady Tigers are led in doubles play by their ace combo of Wolf and sophomore Keri Frankenberger. The pair lost an intense match to Janelle Cuthbertson and Christi Liles of Texas A&M 9-8 on Sunday.
LSU leads the all-time series against Rice 6-4 despite falling to the Owls 4-3 last season in Baton Rouge.
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