BATON ROUGE — The LSU and Clemson men’s tennis teams each won on Saturday afternoon in Baton Rouge to advance to Sunday’s second round where they will play each other.
LSU (19-5) beat Alcorn State (17-8), the Southwest Athletic Conference Champion, 4-0 in its first round match for the second consecutive year.
“It was the players job today to go out and play as well as they could and take care of business,” said LSU coach Jeff Brown. The goal, first and foremost, is to win and we did that.”
The Tigers finished quickly by winning the doubles point and picking up wins at Nos. 3, 5 and 6. Anthony Mateljan was first off the court in singles with an impressive 6-0, 6-0 win over Fred Lay at No. 6.
Dan Kiernan followed that up with a 6-0, 6-1 win over Shomoari Mosi at No. 3 and Mario Alvarez picked up his first dual match win of the year at No. 5 with a 6-1, 6-2 win over Jedidiah Dade to clinch the match.
“It is a big plus this time of the year to be able to conserve energy and if you have any opportunities to get the job done and not be on the court, then you have to take advantage of that,” said Brown.
The second match of the day featured much more drama as the Clemson Tigers (18-16) pulled off a mild upset by knocking off Miami, Fla. (19-5), 4-3.
“It was a four-hour war from the first ball that was hit to the last ball that was hit. It was just a great tennis match,” said Clemson coach Chuck Kriese. “Every guy on Miami’s team fought as hard as they could and every guy on our team fought as hard as we could and we were lucky enough to pull it out.”
The Tigers jumped out to a 1-0 lead by taking the doubles point with wins at Nos. 1 and 3.
In singles, Miami quickly tied the match as Johan Lindqvist beat Luis Garcia 6-2, 6-2 at No. 3 singles.
The match then shifted in favor of Clemson as the Tigers won the next two matches to take a 3-1 lead. At No. 2, Tomasz Boniecki beat Peter Hoffman 7-5, 6-4 while Josh Goffi held off Tomas Smid 6-4, 7-6 at No. 1.
The Tigers rebounded to clinch the match when Marko Gojanovic beat Joel Berman at No. 6, 6-7, 6-0, 6-4. With the match already clinched, Miami’s Michael Lang finished out a 6-3, 6-4 win over Brad Emendorfer at No. 4 singles for the final 4-3 count.
LSU and Clemson will meet in an NCAA Tournament second round match on Sunday at 1 p.m at “Dub” Robinson Stadium.
NCAA Tournament First Round
Baton Rouge, La.
May 13, 2000
LSU 4, Alcorn State 0
SINGLES
No. 1 – Tom Hand (LSU) vs. Misha Frolov (ASU), suspended
No. 2 – Ajay Ramaswami (LSU) vs. Ronald Theodore (ASU), suspended
No. 3 – Dan Kiernan (LSU) def. Shomoari Mosi (ASU), 6-0, 6-1
No. 4 – Jesse Smatt (LSU) vs. Mark Anderson (ASU), suspended
No. 5 – Mario Alvarez (LSU) def. Jedidiah Dade (ASU), 6-1, 6-2
No. 6 – Anthony Mateljan (LSU) def. Fred Lay (ASU), 6-0, 6-0
DOUBLES
No. 1 – Hand-Rubin (LSU) vs. Frolov-Theodore (ASU), suspended
No. 2 – Kiernan-Mateljan (LSU) def. Mosi-Anderson (ASU), 8-4
No. 3 – Ramaswami-Smatt (LSU) def. Dade-Lay (ASU), 8-1
Clemson 4, Miami 3
SINGLES
No. 1 – Josh Goffi (CU) def. Tomas Smid (UM), 6-4, 7-6
No. 2 – Tomasz Boniecki (CU) def. Peter Hoffman (UM), 7-5, 6-4
No. 3 – Johan Lindqvist (UM) def. Luis Garcia (CU), 6-2, 6-2
No. 4 – Michael Lang (UM) def. Brad Emendorfer (CU), 6-3, 6-4
No. 5 – Jose Lieberman (UM) def. Micah Thompson (CU), 6-2, 5-7, 6-1
No. 6 – Marko Gojanovic (CU) def. Joel Berman (UM), 6-7, 6-0, 6-4
DOUBLES
No. 1 – Goffi-Knight (CU) def. Smid-Hoffman (UM), 8-6
No. 2 – Lang-Lieberman (UM) def. Boniecki-Gojanovic (CU), 8-5
No. 3 – Emendorfer-Garcia (CU) def. Arrowsmith-Berman (UM), 8-5