BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s tennis team moved up nine spots to No. 17 in the national rankings on Wednesday, as the Intercollegiate Tennis Association released the newest WingspanBank.com tennis rankings.
“It’s getting down to the point in the season where it is important to have a good ranking,” said LSU head coach Jeff Brown. “You need to be one of the top 13 or 14 ranked teams in the nation at the end of the season to host a regional, and that is a big advantage for a team. Right now, we’re just worried about winning matches, and were trying not to put a lot of emphasis on where we’re ranked.”
The Tigers own an 11-4 overall record on the season and had previously been the 26th-ranked team in the nation. In last week’s dual-match contests, LSU defeated Texas-Arlington, 7-0, and upset the sixth-ranked Tennessee Volunteers, 4-1, at home in the W.T. “Dub” Robinson Tennis Stadium.
All 12 Southeastern Conference teams are ranked among the nation’s top 50.
Georgia leads the way as the fifth-ranked team in the country, followed by No. 11 Tennessee, No. 12 Ole Miss, No. 15 Auburn, No. 17 LSU, No. 20 Alabama, No. 23 Mississippi State, No. 29 Florida, No. 33 South Carolina, No. 36 Arkansas, No. 41 Vanderbilt, and the 42nd-ranked Kentucky Wildcats.
The Tigers have accumulated a 4-3 record against SEC opponents this season by recording wins over Vanderbilt (6-1), Kentucky (4-3), Arkansas (4-3) and Tennessee (4-1).
The 17th-ranked LSU men’s tennis team will next be in action on Friday, March 30, as the Tigers face the Florida Gators at 4 p.m. (Central time) in a conference duel in Gainesville, Fla.
Men’s Tennis Top 25
1. UCLA
2. TCU
3. Duke
4. Texas A&M
5. Georgia
6. Stanford
7. Pepperdine
T8. SMU
T8. Washington
10. Notre Dame
11. Tennessee
12. Ole Miss
13. South Alabama
14. Texas
15. Auburn
16. Ohio State
17. LSU
18. Indiana State
19. Miami (Fla.)
20. Alabama
21. USC
22. Illinois
T23. Mississippi State
T23. Georgia Tech
25. Fresno St.