BATON ROUGE, La. — The No. 27 LSU women’s tennis team (16-8, 6-5) returns home after four matches on the road to take on No. 21 Kentucky (15-9, 6-4) at 11 a.m. Thursday at W.T. ‘Dub’ Robinson Stadium. The match has been moved up to Thursday due to expected severe weather Friday.
“We are excited to get back home after two weeks on the road,” head coach Julia S. Sell said. “We went 3-1 in the road swing so it’s great to carry that momentum home in the final weekend of the regular season. I think we are ready to play though and I’m excited to see how the girls compete against another top-25 team.”
The Lady Tigers compiled huge wins over two ranked teams in the road swing. LSU swept Ole Miss and Mississippi State for the first conference weekend sweep since 2009.
The Wildcats feature all three doubles teams in the latest ITA rankings at 26, 32 and 85. Nadia Rativa is the lone singles player ranked for Kentucky at No. 66.
Joana Vale Costa and Skylar Kuykendall are both in the latest ITA ranking. Vale Costa is ranked 36th and Kuykendall is ranked 75th in the latest release.
Vale Costa has held down court one for the Lady Tigers all season. The sophomore is 12-7 and 6-4 in conference play this spring.
Kuykendall is tied with North Caroline’s Caroline Price with the most wins in the country. The junior is 21-3 on the year and 9-2 in the SEC on the season. The Jasper, Alabama is on a ten-match win streak and is just the second Lady Tiger since 2001 to have more than 20 wins in a year.
For live stats of all home and select road matches, visit www.LSUsports.net/livestats.
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