BATON ROUGE – The LSU men’s tennis team opens up SEC play on Friday when they travel to Gainesville, Fla., for a matchup with the 11th-ranked Florida Gators at 2 p.m. CST at Linder Stadium at Ring Tennis Complex.
The Tigers (3-5) have dropped three-straight matches on their current five-match road swing, falling to No. 4 Ohio State, No. 37 Wake Forest and No. 14 Texas A&M, respectively. The Gators (7-3) enter play on a two-match losing streak after losing to No. 9 Duke and sixth-ranked UCLA at the ITA Team Indoor Championships, but are undefeated at home this season.
“Florida is a great place to start conference competition,” LSU head coach Jeff Brown said. “It’s one of the great venues with a knowledgeable crowd and one of the top teams. It will be a great challenge for us and we are looking forward to a great weekend.”
LSU is led by doubles duo of senior Sebastian Carlsson and junior Neal Skupski, who are ranked 17th in the nation. The Tiger tandem enter play on a seven-match winning streak, and most recently notched a win over the then-No. 1 Texas A&M pair of Austin Krajicek and Jeff Dadamo.
Skupski and Carlsson will put their unbeaten streak on the line against the No. 20 Florida pair of Alexandre Lacroix and Nassim Slilam.
In singles, No. 69 Skupski is the lone ranked Tiger, while Florida enters competition with a trio of players ranked by the ITA; No. 6 Lacroix, No. 32 Sekou Bangoura Jr. and No. 125 Slilam.
The two teams faced-off last season in Baton Rouge, with then-seventh-ranked Florida blanking the Tigers 7-0, but the Tigers hold a 26-24 advantage in the all-time series.
Live stats will be provided by Florida on their website www.gatorzone.com.
For up-to-date information and behind the scenes access to the Tigers, fans can follow the LSU men’s team on Twitter @lsutennis and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/lsutennis.