TULSA, Okla. – Five members of the LSU Men’s Tennis team spent the week in Tulsa, Oklahoma at the ITA All-American Championships. Competition began on September 21 and ran through September 29 at the Michael D. Case Tennis Center.
ITA All-American Championships
The Tigers made appearances in both the singles and doubles brackets. Firstly, Julien Penzlin had an impressive run in singles play. He opened up the tournament for the Tigers against No. 98 Hugo Coquelin of Vanderbilt defeating him 6-3, 7-5 to move on in the main draw of the tournament. In Sunday’s competition, Penzlin faced off against Freddy Blaydes of the University of Georgia. In the first set, the points went back and forth resulting in a narrow score of 7-5 for Penzlin to take the first set. The second set quickly went to the Tiger by a score of 6-3 to allow Penzlin to advance in the competition. After an impressive first match, Penzlin brought the momentum into his second match of the day against Taym Alazmeh of Michigan State University. Penzlin won 6-4, 6-3, with the win seeing him in action in the singles qualifying stage. After Penzlin’s impressive run through the main draw of the competition, No. 70 Alexander Bernard defeated him 6-3, 6-2. Penzlin was back in action in the qualifying singles consolation matches where he defeated No. 58 Antonio Prat of Miami in two straight sets 6-4, 6-1.
Rudy Ceccon fell to UNC Chapel Hill’s Anthony Wright 6-3, 6-1 in his singles pre-qualifying match. However, Ceccon secured a win in a consolation match against Jake Krug of Duke University where he defeated Krug 6-4, 7-5.
Also in action, Ishaan Ravichander faced No. 71 Aidan Kim of Ohio State. Kim defeated Ravichander by a score of 6-1, 6-0 in their singles qualifying match. Ravichander was back on the courts in Tuesday’s competition facing Constantinos Djakouris of UNC Chapel Hill in the qualifying singles consolation matches. In a narrow first set, Djakouris won by a score of 6-4. The second set was another battle with Djakouris winning 6-3 and concluding the match.
The Tigers opened up their doubles competition on Tuesday with No. 20 Penzlin and Lofman taking the courts together. To start, the Tiger duo faced No. 8 Old Dominion duo of Connor Henry Van Schalkwyk and Codie Schalk Van Schalkwyk. The first set quickly went to the Tigers by a score of 6-3. The second set went to a tie-break with Penzlin and Lofman securing the win 7-6(4) to see the Tigers to the next round. Back on the courts, Penzlin and Lofman faced the No. 11 duo of Wally Thayne and Zach Fuchs of Brigham Young University. The first set was taken by Thayne and Fuchs by a score of 6-3. Despite dropping the first set, the Tiger duo fought back and took the second set in a tiebreak 7-6(2). Bringing the momentum from the second set into the third and final, Penzlin and Lofman won by two with a score of 11-9 to advance to the quarterfinals. In the quarterfinal competition, Penzlin and Lofman faced off against Hugo Hashimoto and Michael Zheng of Columbia. The first set was a narrow battle with the Lions winning 7-5. The second set went to Hashimoto and Zheng by a score of 6-1 to conclude the match.
Up Next
Three Tigers will be competing in the UTR PTT 25K Boca Raton from September 29 – October 5.
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