BATON ROUGE – Coming off its highest ranked win of the season on Thursday, the LSU men’s tennis team is looking to keep its momentum going when the team travels to Athens, Ga., to square-off against No. 8 Georgia on Saturday at Noon CDT.
The 44th-ranked Tigers (6-8, 2-2 SEC) notched a 5-2 victory over No. 16 Michigan on Thursday in Baton Rouge, which was the highest-ranked opponent the Tigers have beaten in nearly three years.
Georgia (12-3, 4-0 SEC) enters the match on a seven-match winning streak, and are second in the SEC East behind Tennessee.
“Georgia is a very deep and talented team and they’re having a very impressive season so far,” LSU head coach Jeff Brown said. “It’s going to be a tough match but our guys are looking forward to the challenge.”
The Bulldogs picked up a pair of SEC road matches last weekend, downing 24th-ranked Vanderbilt 6-1 in Nashville, Tenn., before sliding past No. 14 Kentucky 4-3 on Sunday in Lexington, Ky. Georgia is a perfect 8-0 at home this season, including shut-out victories over No. 26 Auburn and No. 37 Alabama.
In conference competition the Tigers have produced wins over 29th-ranked Ole Miss and South Carolina, while falling to No. 13 Florida and No. 33 Mississippi State.
Will Spencer leads the way for the Bulldogs, checking in at No. 25 in the rankings, followed by Javier Garrapiz at No. 25 and Sadio Doumbia at 48th. Garrapiz and Hunt Pieters combine to make the nation’s 10th-best doubles pair, while the duo of Doumbia and Iganacio Taboada are ranked 32nd.
The 12th-ranked tandem of junior Neal Skupski and senior Sebastian Carlsson guide the Tigers with an 11-3 record at the top doubles spot this season. The pair has taken down five ranked doubles teams so far this season, including the then top-ranked pair of Austin Krajick and Jeff Dadamo (Texas A&M) and Ole Miss’s fifth-ranked brother duo of Marcel and Chris Thiemann.
The Bulldogs are 41-14 all-time against the Tigers, including a 5-2 win over LSU last year in Baton Rouge.
Live stats, video and a match blog will be provided by Georgia on www.georgiadogs.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.