BATON ROUGE – The LSU Lady Tiger tennis team returns to play when it travels to New Orleans to face Tulane on Wednesday at 2 p.m. at the Goldring Tennis Center.
LSU is still looking for its first dual match victory of the season as it returns from a seven-day break. Tulane enters the match on a four-match losing streak and has an overall record of 2-4. The Green Wave most recently lost a pair of matches to BYU and Denver over the weekend in Denver, Colo.
“Tulane has always been a very competitive rival of ours,” said LSU women’s tennis coach Tony Minnis. “We barely beat them last year and we expect it to be a tough match on Wednesday.”
Senior Mariam Kurdadze leads the Wave with a 4-2 singles record this season. Playing out of the No. 1 position, the Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, native collected an 8-6 record during the fall campaign. Among her wins this season is a three-set victory over Texas Tech’s Elizabeth Ullathorne, the same opponent Lady Tiger Whitney Wolf also defeated earlier this year.
Lindsay Dvorak has also compiled a 4-2 clip so far this spring and heads into Wednesday on a two-match winning streak including an epic three-set victory over BYU’s Desiree Tran on Saturday. The Tulane junior went 6-3 in the fall and lost to LSU’s Keri Frankenberger 7-5, 6-1 at the ITA Southern Regional in Birmingham, Ala.
Sophomore Emma Levy joins Kurdadze to compose Tulane’s No. 1 doubles team. The pair is 2-3 during the spring season despite amassing an 11-3 record in the fall.
The Lady Tigers are guided by junior Whitney Wolf. Despite falling to No. 60 in the latest ITA singles rankings, the Pride, La., product beat nationally ranked Rebekka Hanle of Rice in her last match. She will likely get the chance to avenge last season’s three-set loss to Kurdadze.
Sophomores Kaitlin Burns and Ebie Wilson both head to New Orleans on two-match winning streaks. After dropping her first match of the season against Texas Tech, Burns has rattled off three-set wins against Christi Potgieter of Texas A&M and Jessica Jackson of Rice.
Wilson, meanwhile, has found her stride since falling in a hard-fought two-set loss to Hayley Fournier of Texas Tech. The Mobile, Ala., native has yet to lose a set since the Texas Tech match, including collecting an easy 6-1, 6-4 decision over Rice’s Daniella Trigo on Feb. 8.
Notwithstanding several narrow losses, LSU is still looking for its first doubles victory of the season. The combo of Wilson and freshman Ariel Morton has been impressive despite their 0-2 doubles record and aim to help the squad pick up the elusive doubles point against the Green Wave on Wednesday.
LSU holds a commanding 29-4 lead in the all-time series. The Lady Tigers narrowly survived a fierce upset bid by Tulane last season to win 4-3.
Follow the LSU women’s tennis team on Twitter @LSUwten and on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/LSUwten.