BATON ROUGE – The LSU Men’s Tennis team is heading to the Case Tennis Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma for its second weekend of fall competition at the 2014 Saint Francis Health System ITA Men’s All-American Championships starting with the pre-qualifying round on Saturday, Sept. 27.
The Tigers have six players competing in the pre-qualifying singles bracket on Saturday with freshmen Simon Freund and William Adkisson along with sophomores John Michael Busch and Justin Butsch and juniors Andrew Korinek and Harrison Kennedy.
Senior Chris Simpson, ranked 49th nationally, junior Tam Trinh and sophomores Jordan Daigle (No. 57 nationally) and Eric Perez were selected to participate in the singles qualifying bracket, which starts on Monday, Sept. 29.
LSU had some success in their opening weekend of fall play as Trinh and Korinek placed as runners up at the Cajun Classic in Lafayette.
Head coach Jeff Brown is hoping the team can build some positive momentum from the strong showing.
“The confidence that some of the guys brought from their good result last week really helped with the spirit of practice,” said Brown. “I know those guys are looking to build on their performance and the guys that just did OK are really looking to join them in that upper level of the rankings and gain those kinds of wins.”
A strong week of practice has the Tigers looking forward to another opportunity.
“The guys who didn’t have a good tournament last weekend want to prove themselves because we have a lot of competition for playing time on this team,” said Brown. “This tournament is your next best chance to do something for yourself and to build that confidence that translates into winning.”
The tournament will also feature doubles play and the Tiger team of Trinh and Perez (ranked 14th nationally) qualified for the main draw while junior Boris Arias and Butsch (No. 46 nationally) will form the doubles team participating in the qualifying doubles bracket.
The tournament is set to go from Saturday, Sept. 27, to Monday, Oct. 16.