BATON ROUGE, La. – The LSU men’s tennis team (16-5, 6-4 SEC) will play their final home match of the regular season and their final match at W.T. “Dub” Robinson Stadium on Thursday when the No. 7 Texas A&M Aggies (17-3, 10-1 SEC) travel to Baton Rouge for a 3 p.m. CST match.
Thursday’s match will also serve as lone LSU senior Chris Simpson‘s senior day as it will be his final match played as an LSU student-athlete.
“Chris has had as big an impact on this program as anyone,” said head coach Jeff Brown. “He is a fighter and he generally finds a way to be in every match regardless of how highly ranked his opponent is. He is a super teammate, person and student-athlete and his contributions will be celebrated for years to come.”
The Tigers have taken advantage of their home-court advantage all season as they have only lost one match at “Dub” all year. In addition to sending the “Dub” off on a winning note, LSU will look to win their twentieth match against Texas A&M.
The all-time series currently stands at 19-24 in favor of the Aggies.
“What a way to send off the ‘Dub’ with a top-ten matchup,” Brown said. “We are excited to compete against such a quality opponent. They have several ranked wins including a win over the top-ranked team [Oklahoma].”
In addition to defeating the No. 1 Sooners, Texas A&M has victories against No. 11 Ohio State, No. 14 Ole Miss, No. 17 Florida, No. 18 San Diego and No. 21 Vanderbilt.
Brown said the key will be which side has someone step up when their number is called. The Tigers have had a chance to win every match this season and they plan to do the same against the Aggies.
“Both teams have guys with almost unblemished records across the lineup,” Brown said. “The match could come down to a match up like that. We are looking to keep competing and fighting hard like we have all year.”
The Tigers will sport a slightly different singles lineup on Thursday with No. 121 Simpson holding down court one and No. 76 sophomore Jordan Daigle on court two. Junior Boris Arias will be on court three with junior Tam Trinh on court four. Junior Andrew Korinek and sophomore Justin Butsch will round out courts five and six for the Tigers.
The team will be treating the fans to 500 lbs. of free crawfish in celebration of the final match in “Dub.”
“There are so many good memories in this stadium over the years and I have been fortunate to be a part of a lot of them,” Brown said. “We hope to take the memories with us into the new stadium which will provide a lot of excitement for the program.”
For up-to-date information and behind-the-scenes access on the Tigers, fans can follow the LSU men’s tennis team on Twitter and Instagram at @lsutennis and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/lsutennis.