BATON ROUGE, La. — The No. 41 LSU women’s tennis team (13-7, 3-4 SEC) begins a four-match road swing with No. 21 Ole Miss at 3 p.m. CT Friday at the Palmer/Sollum Tennis Center.
“This marks the beginning of four tough matches on the road,” head coach Julia Sell said. “We’ve been fortunate to play the last seven at home, but I really think we’re ready to play in these difficult environments. It’s imperative that we go in focused and confident. We have to rely on each other during this stretch.”
The Lady Tigers are coming off a big weekend of SEC play with a win over No. 37 Auburn. Both No. 39 Joana Vale Costa and No. 69 Skylar Kuykendall swept the top two courts over the weekend.
Vale Costa defeated No. 26 Erin Routliffe of Alabama 6-3, 6-4 and No. 73 Pleun Burgmans 6-3, 3-6, 6-4. The sophomore is on a three-match win streak heading to Mississippi.
Vale Costa and doubles partner Noel Scott notched a huge doubles win over the weekend against Burgmans and Emily Flickinger, the sixth-ranked team in the country. Vale Costa and Scott are now ranked 32nd in the country.
Kuykendall carries a six-match winning streak, which includes three ranked wins. The junior defeated No. 54 Danielle Spielmann of Alabama 1-6, 6-2, 6-4 in a comeback win on Friday.
Skylar Holloway provided a huge clinch for LSU in the ranked win over Auburn on Sunday. The sophomore dropped the first set 6-1 and came back to defeat Jen Pfeifler 6-4, 6-2 to move to 12-5 on the season and 3-2 in conference play.
Abby Owens has had a successful season on courts three and four. Owens is 4-2 in the SEC and 12-4 overall.
The Ole Miss Rebels have four singles players in the latest ITA rankings. Julia Jones is 14th in the country with a record of 13-4 overall and 5-3 in the conference. Jones is also 6-3 against ranked singles players this season.
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