BATON ROUGE — The 32nd-ranked LSU men’s tennis team hosts its second Southeastern Conference contest of the weekend as it takes on No. 69 Mississippi State at 1 p.m. on Sunday.
LSU (7-10, 2-7 SEC) leads Mississippi State in the all-time series 42-15, and took both matches in which the teams met in 2008.The Tigers notched a 5-2 victory against Mississippi State in Starkville, Miss., and in Fayetteville, Ark., moved to a 4-0 mark against the Bulldogs in the SEC Tournament.
This year, Mississippi State brings a 10-11 season record and a 2-7 league record into W.T. Robinson Stadium, including the team’s most recent upset victory against 42nd-ranked Arkansas, 4-3.
“Mississippi State is in a similar position that we were in earlier in the year,” LSU head coach Jeff Brown said. “They are a good team, but just haven’t put it all together. They are dangerous and they are hungry.”
The Bulldogs have two nationally-ranked singles players, No. 88 Ryan Farlow and No. 89 Artem Ilyushin. Farlow holds a 5-11 record while Ilyushin is 8-7 on the season.
LSU remains anchored at court one by sixth-ranked Michael Venus. Venus leads the team with a 10-6 record and is also part of the No. 8 tandem with freshman partner Neal Skupski. LSU’s premier duo is
10-7 in the dual season, most recently notching a win over the second-ranked team of Jonas Berg and Bram ten Berge in the match against Ole Miss.
Mississippi State is one of the last two matches slated in W.T. Robinson Stadium for the season with Arkansas concluding the home schedule on April 18 in a noon match.