The No. 20 LSU men’s tennis team struggled to consistently play its best this season — but when it came together, the Tigers beat some of the best teams in the country.
The Tigers (15-11) came into the 2013 spring season as a team in flux. Former team No. 1 Neal Skupski had graduated and his heir apparent, senior Olivier Borsos, was recovering from a lower leg injury that sidelined him in December.
Without a clear ace, there was regular shuffling of both the singles and doubles lineups throughout the season as LSU coach Jeff Brown tried to find the best lineup, which lead to some maddening inconsistencies.
“We are still trying to find our identity as a team and our best lineup,” Brown said after a 0-4 loss to Kentucky. “[LSU] can learn a lot from a loss, and we had a couple of those this weekend.”
But after struggling the two consecutive weekends, Brown grew frustrated with the Tigers’ performance in Southeastern Conference play as they dropped the first four conference matches.
“We have some guys who have lost all confidence,” Brown said after a 1-6 loss to Auburn on March 10. “We will look at it this week and see if we can get guys out there who have the right mindset.”
In what would become a theme for the season, the Tigers won a big match when they desperately needed it: a 4-3 upset of then-No. 11 Texas A&M on March 15. They immediately followed up with a sub-par performance in their next match, a 2-5 loss to Michigan.
There would be more upsets throughout the season against No. 7 Ole Miss and No. 6 Tennessee, but the Tigers could not consistently replicate those results, finishing 5-7 in the SEC.
Lost in the inconsistencies that plagued LSU were two players having stellar years.
Sophomore Chris Simpson solidified himself as the Tigers’ No. 1 player with a win against then-No. 15 Evan King of Michigan — a win that Brown called “very significant.” It would serve as a stepping stone to establish himself as “one of the top players in the nation.” He scored another landmark victory when he defeated the No. 3 player in the country, Tennessee’s Mikelis Libietis.
Senior Stefan Szacinski had arguably the best year of all the Tigers, ripping off eight straight singles victories at one point and moving up to court 2 by the end of the season. Brown said it was good to see Szacinski succeed because of his blue-collar attitude.
“He’s doing this at a higher level,” Brown said. “Playing on court two in the SEC and winning isn’t easy.”
