The No. 25 LSU men’s tennis team battled to a 4-3 victory against Rice on Thursday afternoon.
The Tigers raced out to win the doubles point as the duo of sophomore Chris Simpson and senior Stefan Szacinski dominated their match 8-1. LSU won the doubles point when freshman Boris Arias and senior Olivier Borsos won their match 8-5.
When play resumed in the singles competition, Simpson continued the impressive run of form during which he has won both of his last two matches.
Simpson won his first set 6-0, and then started off the second set 5-1 before letting his opponent — junior Philipp Seifert of Munich, Germany — battle back. The match ended in a 6-3 victory for Simpson.
Simpson said closing out a match with a win in the first set 6-0 can be difficult sometimes, as whenever something goes wrong, a player can start to doubt himself.
“Simpson had a big win today,” said LSU coach Jeff Brown. “[Seifert] beat him last year, so it’s good to see him come out and win the way he did against him.”
Freshman Harrison Kennedy was a surprise inclusion in the Tigers’ singles lineup, which has been the same all year. Kennedy played on court six as Szacinski sat out.
“[Szacinski] has been struggling with his body and getting fit lately,” Simpson said. “So he sat out, and [Kennedy] played really well in his place.”
Kennedy raced out to a 6-2 victory in the first set and continued to dominate during the start of the second set. Although Kennedy allowed his opponent back in the match, he was able to claim the first dual match victory of his career.
“He’s been playing really well in practice so we gave him a shot,” Brown said. “It’s always nerve-racking going out there for your first match, and he had some mistakes, but overall he played very well.”
While the freshman excelled, Borsos’ struggles in singles competition continued. Borsos dropped a three-set thriller to Rice senior Jonathan Chang, bringing his match record so far this season to 0-5.
Brown cited the process of coming back from an injury and the struggle to regain top form as the main reason of Borsos’ troubles so far this season.
The Tigers will continue building toward Southeastern Conference play with matches against No. 27 Texas Tech and No. 4 Ohio State on Feb. 14 and Feb. 22, respectively.
