BATON ROUGE, La. – Junior Rudy Ceccon clinched the match in a 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (4) come-from-behind thriller to topple No. 25 Clemson on Friday evening at the Duckworth Family Tennis Facility.
LSU opens the season at 1-0, while Clemson falls to 0-1.
“It was a great start to the season in an awesome atmosphere,” said Head Coach Danny Bryan. “Clemson had a ton of fans there, so it was exactly what we were looking to get out of this match and get the guys battle-tested. It was certainly not easy, and I don’t think either team played their best, but I’m very proud of the fight. It was just an amazing effort by Rudy to get it done. We really lost the momentum, and the crowd was really getting into it, but he stepped up hugely. I’m really excited for them and looking forward to being at home. We’re ready to go for South Alabama on Sunday, then the ITA Kick Off.”
Sophomore duo Sasa Markovic and Andrej Loncarevic took the top court during doubles action. Matched up against Viktor Markov and Manuel Plunger, they found a break early on to take a 3-2 lead. From then on, the two continued with a full head of steam to pick up the first doubles point of the day for LSU, with a 6-4 victory.
On court three, Ceccon and Enzo Kohlmann paired up to compete against Matisse Farzam and Yannic Nittmann. Both teams found themselves trading games back and forth until Ceccon and Kohlmann took the edge with a 5-3 lead. With their backs against the wall, Clemson strung together four straight games to win 7-5, forcing a deciding doubles point.
In the second spot, the freshman-senior pair of Erik Arutiunian and Matias Ponce de Leon faced off against Romain Gales and Noa Vukadin. After six consecutive holds and an exchanged break of serve, the match sat at a 4-4 stalemate. With neither team forging ahead, they would enter a tiebreak to decide the set. Clemson had the first chance to put away the match with a 6-5 lead, but the first of two match-point saves for LSU would come here, forcing them to play past the seven-point mark. Each duo had multiple chances to put the match away, but Arutiunian and Ponce de Leon prevailed, taking the match 7-6 (9). LSU took the early 1-0 lead against Clemson heading into singles.
Ponce de Leon took the fourth spot to get singles underway. Seeking to continue his impressive debut as a Tiger, he succumbed to a 4-3 deficit midway through the first set, where he was unable to recover. A similar story occurred in the following set, falling to a 4-2 deficit against Farzam. The Spaniard came up short in a 6-3, 6-3 defeat, tying the overall score at one match apiece.
After completing his job in doubles, Arutiunian entered the top court, focused on maintaining his perfect start as a Tiger. After breaking Markov’s serve in the opening game, he kept his foot on the gas, stealing the first set 6-4. Knowing his opponent wouldn’t go down easily, Arutiunian continued to apply pressure in his return games. Sitting at a 3-3 score, the Clemson sophomore eventually let a game slip. That’s all the freshman needed to lead LSU to a 2-1 advantage in a convincing 6-4, 6-3 victory.
Well rested after his smooth doubles victory, Markovic took on court No. 5 with Plunger on the opposite side of the court for the second time today. Looking for a similar result, Markovic dug himself into an early hole and found himself down 4-2 in the first set. However, he racked up 5 out of the remaining six games they would play, taking the first set 7-5. His hot hand got even hotter, as the Serbian routed his opponent once more with a decisive 6-1 scoreline in the second set. LSU now stood one game away from the finish line, with a 3-1 overall score.
Both coming off close doubles losses, Kohlmann and No. 21 Gales pursued redemption. However, it was the Clemson senior who put up a quick 4-1 lead. With little momentum, Kohlmann let it rip, staging an impressive comeback. Winning six of his next seven and posting a first-set score of 7-5, he was one set away from bringing home the win for the LSU Tigers. To no surprise, Gales fought, forcing a break late in the second set, making it 6-3 to send the match into a decider. Throughout the third set, both players traded games until they reached the tiebreaker. Saving back-to-back match points was not in the cards for Kohlmann this time around, as Gales closed it with a 7-6 (5) victory to stave off LSU for now.
Loncarevic stepped foot onto court three, carrying the energy from his previous win. Much like his doubles partner, the sophomore fell to 3-1 in the first set. Unlike his doubles partner, he could not recover against Vukadin, surrendering the first set 6-3. Flipping the script almost exactly, Loncarevic earned two breaks and won 6-2, pushing this match to a final set. After remaining on serve for most of the set, Vukadin broke the 5-5 tie, giving himself a chance to serve for the match. The LSU Tiger fell short of a comeback in a 7-5 third set that brought Clemson back from the brink, forcing a winner-take-all match.
All eyes turned to court No. 6 as Ceccon and Mesarovic would determine which program would open their season with a victory. After the match opened with back-to-back breaks, Clemson pulled ahead with a 5-2 lead. Capturing the next two games, Ceccon couldn’t even out the score again, going down a set 6-4. Standing at a 3-3 score, the junior gave Mesarovic a taste of his own medicine, pulling away late in the second set to force yet another decider in this season opener. It was only right that the final set went into a tiebreak, where both players continued to trade blows. Ultimately, it was the French national who bagged back-to-back mini breaks to seal the deal. Rounding off a 7-6 (4) concluding set, the LSU Tigers earned their first win of the season with a final score of 4-3 against nationally ranked Clemson.
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